The Queen's Rambles

I am just sitting here and don’t have to be anywhere for an hour. What a rarity! Of course, I should be doing laundry, fixing the dishwasher (the top rack is not getting clean) and scrubbing down a bathroom. Instead I am going to tell you tales of excitement and adventure.

Or just gripe about life. Whichever.

Weird thing: I’m driving a rental van, which I hate. I am totally spoiled by my suburban mom van (seat warmer, lumbar support, automatic doors, nice sun shades) and am sick of this boxy, clunky Nissan. Life goes on.

My neighbor, whom I’ve never spoken with, ran over and asked me if I had a new car. I explained it was a rental. She went back home. Neighborly social interaction over.

Then yesterday she runs over to me and tells me that I jinxed her with my talk of a rental car because her son was in an accident. She goes on and on and ON about this accident, not letting me leave. I finally had to walk away because I was running late. She said that it was my fault for jinxing them at least five times. What the hell? Did she think I should apologize? Offer to pay for it? What? I don’t believe in jinxing. Ugh. It’s not my fault some unlicensed driver t-boned her car.

Good thing: Take a box of vanilla cake mix, add a cup of water and a cup of pumpkin puree along with a tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice. Bake about 20 minutes and you have yumilicious, low points cupcakes. I could eat the whole tray. But then that wouldn’t be so low points.

Now that I’m past the first few weeks of dropping weight, the diet is not working as well and I’m getting bored. I have to keep telling myself that a drop is a drop, even if it is a tiny drop. Tiny drops will add up over the long term.

Bad Thing: I had a terrible nightmare this morning. It shook me up, big time. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a couple of hours after getting up. The sad thing? It wasn’t about monsters or blood or death. I was transported back to my childhood, in my bed, listening to my mom and dad scream and fight. They were always brutal. I was always terrified. I got very little sleep in my younger years.

I am so glad my children don’t have to live in that type of a household. I am so glad I don’t have to live that kind of life.

Future Thing: Ellen gave me a great idea about jobs–a college that has 10 month employees. There are a ton of universities around here so I did some looking. I am not applying to anything right now, but after looking at job postings I am thinking I may have a shot at something on a college campus in a few years. I’ll need to take a course in Microsoft Office. Most colleges around here have reciprocal tuition for in-state schools. That would be an amazing perk when the kids are old enough to attend. Obviously this is far, far in the future and a big fantasy. It does give me some food for thought, though.

I hate that I feel like I am wasting my brain. I am smart! I could do something smart! But. . . do I really want to work 60 hours a week? I need to maintain my home. I need something that brings in some cash flow, but I’m not passionate enough about anything to work my fingers to the bone. I could be a doctor! A lawyer! A famous author! But. . . yeah. . .that would require focus and dedication and sacrifice. Not going to happen.

Maybe one day I will find my passion.

I love beautiful fall weekends. I could live without the rain, but I guess that’s what you get when you live in this area–random thunder storms after days of weather bliss.

There was no school on Friday, so Mike took the day off and our Camp Fire club went out to a fall pumpkin festival corn maze type thing.

I am going to editorialize and say a good time was had by all. Except one dad. Poor guy has a heck of a time with this kids. The older one kept running off and the younger one has some delays. The dad finally called it a day when the younger one peed his pants right as a bee stung the dad’s finger.

Our family had a wonderful time. I even got a fun picture of Elsa.

I’d never been to a pumpkin patch or corn maze until we moved out here. Do they have such a thing in Oregon? I don’t think corn grows in the high desert. My hometown grows potatoes and hay.

I really love the tradition and am thrilled that we’ve found a super cool farm to call “our place.” In the past we went to the orchard down the road from us. It’s super expensive and doesn’t have all the much to do. It has fun decorations, but what kid wants to look at a bunch of painted pumpkins when they could be doing something instead? The place we went to this weekend had the corn maze, several smaller mazes, a corn pit, two jumping pillows, a playground, two sets of big slides, ducky races and other things that I can’t remember right now.

In other news, I am kicking around the idea of “what do I want to do when Elsa starts school?”

I always said that I would just sub. The hours are perfect, even if the pay is crap. But you know what? I don’t like other people’s children. I don’t want to work with kids in any capacity (other than volunteering at my children’s school/events to make life better for them).

But. . . the thought of working full time freaks me out. Who is going to cook? Who is going to clean? Who is going to do laundry? When will I work out?

But. . . if I was working we would have more money and could move into a single family home a lot more quickly. And our retirement fund would grow! And we could travel.

Maybe a part time office job will come up in the future. No need to borrow trouble now. I want to get a Masters, but I have no idea what I want to study. Makes it kind of hard to write a personal statement and all that jazz. I don’t think “I need a job so I can make money, and be fulfilled, but I don’t want to work too hard” is going to cut it.

I can’t believe I have a seven year old! Doesn’t seem possible that he is such a big kid, yet in some ways I can’t remember what life was like before he came along.

How did this little bundle:

Become this:

You can click through for more pictures if you are interested in seeing a bunch of goofy kids trying to all look the silliest during pictures.

This was, hands down, the easiest birthday party I’ve hosted. I let him pick 10 friends (we did let a few siblings come) and manipulated his little brain so no brats were on the list. Other parents were surprised at the mix of boys and girls. I guess at this age a lot of kids only want same gender friends, but he really enjoys playing with girls. Or I should say he enjoys being around girls. He doesn’t really like playing with them unless we are doing something like bowling. The girls always want to play house and he always wants to play ninja warrior fighter crash or whatever the heck it is boys play. Somehow it all manages to work out.

Can we have a bowling party every year? It was so much cheaper than a lot of the party places and all I had to bring was the cake and goody bags. I wasn’t allowed to bring in any other food, which was great. Usually I stress out over what type of munchies to put out for the adults. Kind of nice when all the stress is taken away because some one else lays down the law.

I did stress over the cake, but it turned out pretty neat. You know I hate camo, but I will do anything for my kids. So. . .

He got his camo cake with a waterfall. He wanted a moose drinking from the waterfall, but when we got to Micheal’s he saw the tube of bugs and had to have them. There’s a preying mantis in the water, which is the MOST HILARIOUS THING EVER. Ummmm. If you’re seven, maybe. I don’t get the joke.

I found a tutorial on making a camo cake, but someone on FB told me a better way to do it. I just piped out blobs and lines, let the cake sit in the fridge for about a half hour, then laid Viva paper towels over the cake and smashed it all down with a fondant smoother. The Viva paper towels are super, super smooth so leave a smooth finish. My buttercream was a smidgen too runny so I had a bit of an issue. If I ever use this method again I will really blob on the frosting with a super, super big hole in the bag instead of piping it on with a skinny hole. You can kind of see the lines were I was piping. I’m pretty proud of the cake, regardless. Erik placed all the bugs and chocorocks, so I can’t take credit for that artistic vision. I refuse to take credit for giant cockroaches.

The inside of the cake was also camo colored, but I didn’t think to take a picture.

One of my friends took Elsa for the day, so that alleviated a lot of stress. No one had to chase after her for three hours. My friend even took some really cute pictures of her, which is a minor miracle. Elsa refuses to look at the camera when I point it her way, which is very frustrating for someone like me who loves pictures.

This is the best I get:

Hope you all had a great weekend!

I need to remember that to-do lists calm me. I have never been a to-do list maker, but I discovered they were a saving grace after I had Elsa. My brain is not as sharp as it used to be–or maybe it’s just that I have four people’s schedules shoved into a brain that is designed for one person.

Things got a lot more complicated this morning when I was pulling out of a parking space and heard a crunch-crunch-screech sound. I backed back into the spot and took a look at the car next to me. I did a number on their bumper (because I know someone is going to ask, we were both facing out of a parking space, so I hit the front of their driver’s side with the back end of my passenger side).

The owner of the car walked out right when I started flailing about, looking for some paper. He was pissed for a millisecond, then became really nice and calm when I fell over myself apologizing and got out my insurance card.

I spent a long time on the phone with the insurance rep, getting everything set up. I haven’t needed to make a car insurance claim in over 10 years. This was a MUCH better experience than I remember. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older and calmer, have better insurance or if times have changed that much. He was able to make an appointment for me to take my car into the shop for an estimate and arrange for a rental car. Easy peasy. I’m not thrilled with the deductible hitting right at the beginning of Christmas season, but at least we only have a $500 deductible instead of $1000.

Since the door is not really all that damaged (I doubt I was even going 2 miles per hour when I went crunch-crunch), I am not taking it to the shop until Monday. I have things to do! Places to go! People to see! I don’t have time to mess around at an auto shop tomorrow.

It’s Erik’s birthday weekend, along with a big school even called Sweets and Treats (basically their fall festival with a candy and cake theme). I’m running the Sugar Shuffle, a shell game with a piece of rolo candy as the prize. Erik always wants to go to New York so he can play the shell game and win lots of money, so now he gets a chance to win a piece of candy. That’s even better than a fifty dollar bill, right? I don’t know if I’m the right woman for the job. I have a lot of practice since Erik loves the thrill of the gamble, but he always wins so maybe I’m not fast enough.

We have an all day soccer game-day on Saturday, which sucks. That’s when I’m supposed to be making the birthday cake. I’ve got myself psyched up for doing the camo frosting. What can go wrong with big blobs of icing? But now he wants me to make a moose taking a shower under a water fall.

Just a leeeeeettle bit outside my skill set. I’ll take him to Michael’s and let him pick out a set of animals to put on the cake. There was a Native American set that might have a moose. I can make a pond with blue icing. I picked up some sparkly clear gel icing that I can mix with it to make it look more like water.

I am starving for pizza. Someone give me pizza1

Five minutes later. . .

I can have pizza! I have enough points for two slices of my favorite pizza. Whoo-hoo!

I’m still doing well with the WW. They say you lose the most the first two weeks and that seems to be true. It is definetly disappointing, but not unexpected, when you start losing 1-2 pounds a week instead of a huge ten pound drop like the first week. I’ve been doing it three weeks and am down 13 pounds. Not too shabby. I don’t even hate it. They give you enough points to have a little, key word being little, treat every once in a while. If you do some planning you can go out and eat with out a problem. I am trying not to berate myself for not doing this years ago. It is what it is and I need to reap the benefits now. Look to the future, not the past. Blah blah blah. I’m getting better at not berating myself about things I can’t change.

Also, a big thank you to a reader who pointed me to Naartjie Such CUTE clothes! And not too much worse than Gymboree (though I don’t spend nearly that much at Gymboree since I shop sales). I ordered a few things to cute up Elsa’s fall wardrobe.

Heather has been sending me lots of links to cute dresses, so I have some options! I even went to Burlington Coat Factory today but I swear there is some kind of vacuum that all the 3T clothing goes into. Guess I’ll just have to wait a couple of weeks for Christmas pictures. It is so tempting to pull Erik out of school for a morning photo shoot, but I guess that would be setting a bad example about the value of school.

Don’t even get me started about the value of school around here. I am so tired of the smart gets getting short shrift. I visited the classroom on Monday and it was eye-opening. Erik was in the back rolling around on the carpet while he waited for the other kids to figure out the “sensory word” in the phrase “green beetle” was green. I am glad the teacher has an infinite amount of patience for the kids who need extra help, but it is upsetting to know that Erik is not being challenged. I have been exploring my options again and the only solution seems to be home school. I’m not that desperate yet. I don’t think Erik and I would make a good student-teacher combination.

Guess I better go order that pizza! The natives are getting restless.

I threw my back out this morning, which has been no fun. I can stand up straight if I use a heating pad and really try hard, but it hurts. I want to take some pain pills, but I know they’ll knock me on my ass. I have things to do. I’ll take them before bed and hope for the best.

We were supposed to go to a corn maze with our Camp Fire group today, but the farm was closed for rain. The family that always hosted Camp Fire last year doesn’t want to host again this year (I can’t say I blame them). We are trying to do as many outdoor activities as possible, but obviously that doesn’t work in the rain. I ended up saying I would host and throwing together a lesson plan. We made play-doh and messed around with Erik’s Squishy Circuit kit. The kids LOVED that. Then we made smoothies. The kids had a choice between my recipe with spinach or my friend’s recipe with rice milk. Only the non-verbal child and Erik chose mine. They don’t know what they’re missing. Erik was quite put out that no one would try his delicious smoothie. The recipe is all his, you know *wink*.

I’m working on our school directory. Ugh. Why can’t people print neatly? I’ve been making phone calls and sending e-mails, but there are a few that are so bad that it is impossible to make out any information at all. This whole directory feels kind of pointless. There are 511 students and only 103 turned in information for the directory. Erik’s class has two entries, including him.

It’s also a very classist book. I’d say 95% of the entries are from the very wealthy neighborhood surrounding the school (think doctors and lawyers). The rest are from us schlubs who live out in townhouses and apartments. Our PTA is ran almost entirely by the rich neighborhood. More power to them! I wish we could get more people involved, but let’s face it: rich neighborhood=more stay-at-home moms. I almost invited the president to my house so she could show me some things, but ended up keeping my trap shut and going to her house. She’s a very nice lady. She had a doll house all set up for Elsa. The thing was bigger than Elsa’s toddler bed. So beautiful! I wish we had room for one at our house.

Erik’s birthday is less than a week away. Eeeeeek!

In addition to all the last minute birthday events, it also means it is time for Christmas pictures. I like to do them on his birthday so I can get Halloween pics, birthday pics and Christmas pics all in one shot. Last year we were a couple of weeks behind schedule and hit the beginning of the Christmas rush. I don’t want to make that mistake again, but I’m having trouble finding a pretty dress for Elsa. I don’t want red. I want. . . wait for it. . . turquoise or teal or blue. Shocking, I know! But my kids look damned good in blue. They look pasty in red. I’d accept something in the purple family.

Maybe I should skip Christmas cards and send out Halloween cards instead.

I went shopping for Elsa’s fall wardrobe and was sorely disappointed. The transition from 2T to 3T means Elsa went from being a cute little toddler to a 50 year old, overweight divorcee. Yes, I can find cute separates, but I really love the Rare Editions (and other brands) tunic and leggings sets. The ones for 3T are sooooooooooo ugly. They’re all bat-wing and Mrs. Roper-esque prints. I guess I need to expand my search. Macy’s, Pennys and Kohls aren’t doing it for me. Gymboree and Crazy 8s failed me. They had stuff, but it was all retro-70s colors that burn my eyes. Children’s Place had some cute stuff, but my kids are too hefty to wear their clothes. I can’t afford boutique prices.

Yes, yes, I know. I am too picky.

I just want sweet, functional, attractive children’s clothing. No hoochie mama. No great big fake plastic gems. Not much glitter or sparkle. I want to expand the cute little newborn clothes into size 3T. Is that really too much to ask? Without paying an arm and a leg?

*Fringe is back! I was crying so hard last night. Good stuff! Bad stuff! Really bad stuff! HORRIBLE stuff! But Peter and Olivia are back and they are always wonderful to watch together. I am so glad they get to finish out the series with an amazing storyline and the knowledge that this is really it. No teases to try to keep it going. Things will be resolved.

*We are supposed to be at Family Camp with Camp Fire this weekend. I reminded Mike about it on Thursday night and he said he wasn’t going. He’s had a rough week so I don’t blame him for wanting to stay home and relax. We decided I would take Erik and he’d stay home with Elsa.

Then things happened. Elsa gave me a freakin’ black eye by head butting me. I’m not enthralled with the idea of showing up somewhere with a black eye and saying “sorry, my husband decided not to come.”

Erik started crying when he realized he would miss the big Game Day in soccer. I don’t know if his soccer club is typical for first graders, but at this age they have regular game days against other teams in their club every Saturday, but this Game Day was 3 hours of games against another soccer club–not every team was playing every time slot. Each team played a total of 90 minutes, but we were all there a long ass time.

I found out we would be sharing a cabin with four families, which meant strangers would be looking at me in my pajamas. Maybe they’d be snoring. Maybe I’d be snoring. I am not at all comfortable sleeping in a cabin with complete strangers, especially men. Also, Erik refuses to take a top bunk and there’s no way I’m taking a top bunk. I think that could become a big problem.

Sooooo. . . we decided to call our registration fee a wash. We aren’t camping and I am totally happy about it! I’ve been dreading it for two months, but I was doing it for Erik. I feel bad about the lost registration money, but it was a small price to pay to have a more sane weekend.

Not that it was totally sane. We spent 3 hours at the soccer field, which was a bit too much for Elsa. She got pretty whiney by the end. Thankfully there was a little breeze, so we weren’t roasting in the sun. Hello, fall!

I hardly ever go to the games because I become a crazy soccer mom and yell a little too much “encouragement.” I played soccer in elementary school so I know a little bit of the strategy. For example, if the other team has the ball you should try to kick it away from them. If the ball comes your way, you should chase it and kick it. You know, your basics that not all 6 year olds understand.

Erik started out as goalie, which was way too stressful for me. He was sitting there picking dandelions, doing some dance moves, trying to climb the net. I am not proud at how much I yelled. Plus, no one ever told him the goalie can pick up the ball, so that about sent my blood pressure through the roof. It’s much, much better for everyone when I pay zero attention to the game.

*How do you RSVP to a party when the e-mail address bounces and the answering machine is full? I’m so annoyed. I am meticulous about RSVPing because I know what a pain it is to have all these question marks when you’re trying to plan food, goodie bags, etc. So let me RSVP, lady!

*Remember how I used to have a full hate-on for anything camo? I would freak out when my family suggested I buy my sweet, angel toddler camo clothes. I would swear up and down my son would never, NEVER wear anything that I associated with drunken, woodsy debauchery.

Yeah. That went out the window a couple of years ago. I still hate it, but it’s Erik’s favorite color. Guess what I’ll be making in two weeks? A freakin’ camo cake. I am not a fan of decorating cakes. I much prefer to go over to the grocery store, flip through the big book, and pick something out and leave it to the professionals. However, I’ve learned that my hometown independent grocery store’s bakery was a complete anomaly. They make delicious cakes and kick ass at decorating. They have actual, real, trained professionals doing the work. They made my wedding cake and it was beautiful.

The chain grocery stores out here? Not so much. The cake tastes terrible. I can’t find a single one that fills the cake with custard or mousse. If you’re lucky they fill with buttercream, but most don’t make filled cakes at all. And forget about the decorating. Ugh. If you want it to look like anything special you have to do it yourself or pay through the nose for an actual bakery to do the work. I greatly admire the skill of professional bakers and would be willing to pay for a cake for an adult party, but I’m not into spending that much for a children’s birthday party.

That leaves me making the cake or getting creative (ordering a fairly blank cake and sticking action figures on it). Thankfully it doesn’t seem like he wants anything impossible this year. I found a tutorial for a camo cake and it seems like I might be able to do it. You pipe on blobs and lines of the different colors, let it crust, then use a high density foam roller to smooth it. A friend on FB just told me to us a Viva paper towel and fondant roller instead, so maybe I’ll do it that way. If I wasn’t dieting I’d do a test run tomorrow to see if I could make it work. I may have to do a test run anyway and just try hard to stick to my diet. I am seeing results, which makes it a lot easier to stay committed to the plan.

Erik saw a kit for a haunted gingerbread house and had to have it. Lucky for him he had enough money in his wallet to purchase the darned thing. I want to like gingerbread houses. I want to have fun decorating them. I want to have a cozy time, laughing and sticking candy to a wall of cookie.

But I don’t. I hates it, I do.

Erik bought the kit and I told him and Mike to handle it. Mike put the structure together and Erik did every single bit of decoration himself. I am so proud of him! He sat there for at least 30 minutes working on it. I have never seen him concentrate so hard on an artistic endeavor.

Elsa is in the “refuses to have her picture taken” stage. I want pictures of my silly, sweet, sassy little girl, but she’s having none of it. I snuck this one in at the playground this morning. Erik didn’t have school because of Yom Kippur, so I knew it was imperative to get the boy outside. Before we left, Elsa grabbed both her lunch boxes and stuffed them with food. She was only happy on the playground if she had food in hand. As soon as she ran out of food she was ready to go home. I really need to get a handle on her eating. I don’t think it is ok to make a toddler diet, but I need to get her to eat more fruits and veggies. Right now she mainly eats meat in any form, crackers, bananas and any type of sugar she can get her hands on (more than I let Erik have, but less than some kids are allowed).

Today brought me back to the days of being a SAHM with Erik. It was such a different experience. We would spend a minimum of three hours a day outside, usually more. I spent the entire time chasing him. The second we got home he started screaming his head off and being generally discontent.

Elsa’s good for about an hour on the playground, then she asks to go home. So much easier! But also, makes a big difference in my activity level.

I totally freaked myself out this morning, thinking I was pregnant. People have talked me off a ledge and I now think I am just getting older and my body is having some ovulation spotting. Ugh. Better than pregnancy, though! I love my children more than anything and I know I would love any future children, but I don’t want to go through pregnancy and the newborn stage again. Our life is just getting back to the point where everything doesn’t revolve around naps and sleep.

Mike also pointed out that my problem could be related to my changed diet and rapidly losing 10 pounds. Maybe so, maybe so.

I must say, I am shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you. I love weight watchers. I have been dragging my feet with WW for years. Even when the doctor straight up told me it was the only weight loss program that she would recommend, I scoffed. I thought “sure, it works for other people, but how can it possibly work for me? My body hates me. Nothing will ever work. Diets are for shmucks. Woe is me.”

Ten days in and I’m having great success (though I fully expect the pounds lost to slow waaaaaaay down this week). It cuts through all my bullshit justifications, games, false health information and all my other excuses. It’s really pretty simple. Less food in.

I can eat whatever I want, but I have to budget my points. If I decide a brownie is more important than dinner, I can go for it (not that I’ve done that, but I could and just knowing I could makes me less angsty and crave-y). I’m so great at the justifications. “It’s whole grain! It’s organic! It has [whatever healthy thing it has].”

Or I go the other way and ban all things. Banning doesn’t work because then that’s all I think about and I become obsessed. I can do it for a few months, but once I fall off the wagon, I fall hard.

The first week of WW was hard, especially since I was all messed up with my food scale, but I’m in a groove now. I am not totally depriving myself, but I am eating much smaller portions. My stomach is used to the smaller sizes now. And I’m eating a lot healthier. I think I can do this! It would be totally amazing if this worked.

The only real snag is “what to cook for dinner?” Some of my recipes work, but a lot of them don’t. They are just not worth the points. I’ve been testing out new recipes and it has been a half and half proposition. Half are acceptable (a couple were even good) and half are nasty. Tonight I made the best one yet, Filipino Adobo Pork from Skinny Taste. Yum yum yum! It was so simple, too. Just pork in a crockpot with soy sauce, vinegar and a few spices.

What else is happening? I went and painted pottery for charity last night. My friends and I had a great time and I totally didn’t hate the results of my painting. I want to see the finished product, but it is going to a fundraiser thing so unless I go and bid on it, it is long gone. I won’t be doing that. I am not a gala attender type.

The kids have a nasty cold, with a hacking cough that keeps them up all night. I let Erik stay home from school today, which was probably a mistake. He need to go outside and run. He doesn’t have school tomorrow because it’s Yom Kippur. I think they’ll be ready to go to a park tomorrow.

I took them to Target for tissue and it was a nightmare. I let Elsa sit in the big part of the cart as long as she stays seated. As soon as she starts hanging out of the cart, I buckle her in.

Let’s just say she does not enjoy being buckled in.

She is a strong, determined young lady. I was trying to get her into the seat portion of the cart and she wouldn’t put her feet down to go through the holes. She was screaming so loud that people were coming around the corner to stare.

I finally got her buckled in and was showing a book to try to distract her. Erik, in all his six year old wisdom, grabs a $20 Dora book to show her. Of course that was the only book she wanted, but no way in hell was I paying $20 for a freaking sing-songy book that would either end up completely ignored or torn to pieces.

She finally settled down and we did our shopping.

At the end, Erik wanted to buy a pretzel from the snack bar, so we ordered and were told it would be a few minutes. We sat down to wait. And we waited and waited and waited and WAITED and WAITED and waited some more. Every time someone would look at Elsa she would hide her face. People thought she was playing peek-a-boo and would try to engage her. They didn’t catch on that she was saying “welly scared, welly scared, mom.” She finally crawled under the table because people wouldn’t quit looking at her. It’s not like they were in her face or anything. She hates to have anyone glance her way. So different from Erik, who must be the center of attention at all times. I was going a little nuts. The floor was so nasty, but she refused to come out and sit on my lap.

Ok, guess it is time to take this boy up to bed. Hopefully I’ll have a little TV watching time afterwards. I don’t know how I’m going to keep up with all my shows this fall. Last year I had hours of TV watching time since Elsa napped on me, but this year she isn’t napping. There’s no way I can watch my shows with her in the room. Can you imagine how freaked out she’d be if I was watching Grimm or Fringe while she rode her rocking horse?

About a year ago I followed a blog link to a drama post to a forum I had never heard of. I stuck around the forum because the drama was entertaining to read. As I kept reading, though, something happened. Epiphanies! Realizations! Spine building! The forum, Dealing with the In-laws, is over on Baby Center (very easy to google, I don’t want to link to it here). If you want to learn how to deal with difficult people and be entertained at the same time, I highly recommend it. I learned that my family is completely bat shit crazy and that it’s ok for me to say “No, that doesn’t work for me” when they start acting crazy. I should not be giving them my all when they are giving me a shit sandwich. It is not normal to spend so much time worrying about what my family of origin needs when I have my very own little family to take are of. Thus we had the best summer vacation ever. It was very freeing. No plane travel to a hole-in-the-wall that we all hate. No babysitting a bunch of kids who don’t know how to behave. No worrying that we’ll be murdered in the night by my sister/her husband/some random drug seeking person the cat dragged in. Wish I would have discovered DWIL years ao.

As a by-product of this new found spine, I also learned how to kick ass when things go wrong at school. Today I think I kicked some ass. I hope.

Instead of simpering around, being mad and raging internally and on the internet, I took serious action about the bully at Erik’s school. I e-mailed the principal (very firm, with a request for a three pronged action plan) and his teacher. I talked to the Safety Patrols (though I do not expect them to do much. I think it is ridiculous to give 4th and 5th graders that kind of power and expect them to handle naughty little children), and I talked to the bus driver.

As a former teacher I knew they were not going to suspend him, expel him, kick him off the bus, or anything else that would be drastic for a first offense (though I’ve heard from the neighborhood moms that this would be far from the first offense). My number one goal was to get the bully into an assigned seat behind the bus driver.

Whoo-hoo! It worked! That’s exactly what is happening.

The principal and I chatted for about 30 minutes and every time he would say something to try to smooth things over and downplay the severity, I’d say “physical abuse is completely unacceptable. I understand the other child must have some serious things going on in his life to cause his behaviors. It is not my six year old child’s job to understand that or be his punching bag. Physical abuse is unacceptable for any reason.”

Just so you know, I recognize that “boys will be boys” and that boys play rough. If this was a kid from the neighborhood that he had a good relationship with, I would not have taken this sort of action. Erik has been complaining about this child from day 1. He says he tries to stay far away from him and he does not play with him at all.

The principal told me that he was required to give me a link to the districts’s bully reporting website but that I did not have to fill it out. He kept telling me that he already investigated the situation so there was really nothing to be gained by reporting it on the site, but that he was not discouraging me from reporting it. He was TOTALLY discouraging me from reporting it. I told him I would most likely be using the link and I would do everything in my power to advocate for my child. That I understood things are not easy for teachers because they have to balance the needs of everyone, but my job as a parent is to solely focus on making school a better place for my child. If I don’t advocate for him, who will?

Still trying to decide if I want to report via the link or not. I need to talk to some experienced parents and find out what doing the report will actually do.

I am so proud of myself! Long time readers know that it is not long ago that I would have rolled over and showed my belly. I can talk a big game, but once I am in midst of an actual confrontation I turn into jelly. Of course, I am well aware that i still have problems standing up for myself. It is different if my child is getting the raw end of the stick. I would do anything for my kids, not matter how crazy or outside my comfort zone it is.

Except play video games. Ugh. I draw the line at playing little kid games (most days).

*I just fired off an e-mail to the principal. Tonight I found out that Erik is the victim of bullying on the bus. Apparently a kid was slapping his face and holding him down. The kid also regularly pushes him, says mean things to him and “pretends to be a mean horse.” Last year I think I under reacted to the situation with his teacher, so I am trying to be more proactive this year. My e-mail was not an angry screed or anything. It was firm, but clear. It said that we needed to work together as a team because physical abuse was completely unacceptable. I know it is hard to control what happens on the bus, but my kid should not be getting slapped in the face. No way, no how.

And yes, I know Erik has a history of making things up. I tend to believe him in this case because I have heard of this kid before and the general consensus among adults is that he’s a very mean little bully. I know that means there is something awful going on in his own little life, but my kid is not going to be his punching bag while he works that out.

Whoever said “bigger kids, bigger problems” was so right.

*I am a big idiot sometimes. I have been using my food scale to measure things for my WW adventures. Not everything, thankfully, but the meat, cheese, and even a chocolate chip cookie. I thought my scale was set on ounces and that I just couldn’t see the decimal point. So when it said my cookie was 30, I thought that meant it was 3.0 ounces. For a reasonable amount of points I can have two small cookies that are .5 oz each. I could not figure out how the hell anyone could make a cookie that was 1/6 of the size of my cookie! And I sure as hell wasn’t going to use that many points on a damned cookie! Turns out my cookie was just 1 ounce. Big difference! I had enough points for one. Yum yum.

I had a much more satisfying meal tonight, with a lot more meat than I’ve been eating. What a difference! I can’t believe I really thought I was just too blind to see the decimal point.

No wonder I was so hungry. I was totally cheating myself out of quite a few points. I’ve been eating a ton of fruits and veggies, but was missing out on protein.

*There’s a lady in my social circle who skews towards crazy. I have come to accept her, but some of the things she says blow my mind. She’s Dutch, so when she does something strange she says “Well, that’s just how we do it in the Netherlands.” I want to tell her, that may be so but we are living in America. Great attidtude from a former immigrant, eh? Everyone thought I was crazy, too. I should have sympathy, but I don’t.

The last time we had an event she told us that ALL Dutch women have home births, no Dutch women take prenatal vitamins, and no Dutch people use Novocaine during a visit to the dentist.

She said all this with pride, like this somehow made the Dutch people superior, but all I could think was “what the hell? I didn’t know there were third world countries in that part of Europe.”

I had to do a little research because I just couldn’t believe it.

Turns out that the home birth rate has dropped to 24% because the Netherlands has one of the highest infant mortality rates of any developed country. The problem seems to lie in the midwives, not the home births. A study showed the higher mortality rate happened with women who delivered with a midwife, whether it is in the hospital or a home birth.

Women do take a small prenatal vitamin–folic acid only.

I am thinking I never want to go through a pregnancy in the Netherlands! I didn’t take my pre-natals like I should have because they made me so sick so I’m not sure how totally necessary they are, but the high infant mortality rate gives me pause. (Not that I ever want to go through another pregnancy no matter the country I’m in.)

And forget about dental care. I was gagging as I was reading complaints about dentistry over there. Apparently most dentists don’t use anesthesia, nor do they sterilize their instruments between patients.

So what should I say when this lady brings up the Dutch superiority again? And I know she will. Do I just ignore it like usual or say “You know, I’ve been doing some research. I guess now we know why the infant mortality rate is so high over there. And haven’t your dentists had any modern medical training?”

*I have chigger bites. Holy hell, they are itchy.

*The end.