The Queen's Rambles

I thought we would be mopey this weekend since we had to drop Grandma off at the airport and I knew Erik was heartbroken that she was leaving. Her flight didn’t leave until 12:30 pm, so we had time to get everyone up and dressed and in the car. Usually she has to be there at some god awful hour that doesn’t make for a fun family outing. Mike rolls out of bed and shuffles her off to the airport and is home before the rooster crows.

Since we were down at Dulles, we decided to stop in at the air and space museum that’s housed down there. I didn’t realize it was actually on airport property, so that was pretty interesting. We saw great views of some jumbo jets taking off and landing. In fact, the views were almost too good. Those big ol’ jets are big. It was a little scary to see them moving so fast and low near my head.

Erik kept thinking we were going to the science museum in “Voldemort” (his pronunciation of Baltimore), so he kept waiting for the fun stuff that he remembered fro our trip there last year. And honestly? Can’t say I blamed him that much. There are all kinds of old airplanes, a space shuttle, and lots of space stuff on display, but it is not really fun if you can’t read. Chasing an 18 month old under the Enterprise is a lot more mundane than you’d think.

It would be a lot more exciting if they had a model Starship Enterprise set up and you could walk all around in it. Seeing the outside of a real space shuttle is neat, but nothing that shakes my gravy.

At the end we went up seven floors in an old observation tower and saw some really pretty views. The elevator had markings for floors 1-7. Erik was convinced that if we’d just stop on floor 3, 4 or 5 that we’d get to do all the fun stuff we’d been missing. A docent was in control of the elevator so we couldn’t stop on those floors and show him that they were empty. When we went outside, we turned around and had a perfect view of the observation tower. From the outside you could see that there was no building around the observation tower. It jutted up from the building on a long, spindly rectangle that blossomed into the observation tower. I tried explaining that floors 3-5 didn’t even exist, but his logical reasoning skills aren’t quite there yet.

He spent the whole time there saying he wanted to leave, then had a meltdown in the parking lot because we were leaving.

Did I say we had a pleasant weekend?

We did, actually. Or maybe we just had a pleasant Sunday.

I decided to take Erik to Puss n Boots today since I like Shrek. Sadly, the movie is no Shrek and I was getting pretty antsy while sitting there. Erik liked it, so that’s the important thing. I was a little worried that he would be bored. He told me he didn’t want to see it because there are no such things as sword fighting cats. Duh, Mom. Let’s stay home and watch the Power Rangers fight . . . aliens? cat people? gerbils? instead.

Afterwards, I needed to go look for a new fitted sheet for our bed since the current sheet has a gigantic hole in it. It used to be tiny, but then Elsa started using it as a hand hold for climbing into the bed and it all went downhill (or up-hole?) from there. Now I have new, beautiful teal sheets. I’ve always wanted teal sheets, but thread count and softness is more important so I usually end up with light blue. I don’t know what I’ll do with the flat sheet since we use duvet covers instead of sheets. I usually only buy a fitted sheet, but I couldn’t find any separate fitted sheets today. I couldn’t find any teal duvet covers either, so now we’ll really be mismatched.

We ended up at a shopping center with a pet store and a Five Below (like a dollar store, only five dollars and below), so Erik begged to go to both those places. Don’t you know Five Below is, like, totally awesome? He’d never been there before and was convinced that it must be the coolest place ever because some of his friends go there to spend their allowance. His mind is going to be totally blown if we ever take him to Disneyland.

It was really nice to have an afternoon with Erik. It feels like I never see him any more and when I do see him we just fight because I am supposed to be his mother and need to make him do things like homework or chores or other things that mothers require. He had a very nice time looking at all the animals and shopping around in Five Below. We didn’t argue or fuss at each other. It was like old times when he was my little buddy that went everywhere I went. We need to start having little mommy and son “dates” more often. I miss him.

My mom’s going back to Oregon tomorrow, so we’re all pretty sad. She’s going to miss the kids, the kids are going to miss her. I’m going to miss her. It’s nice to have someone around to help around the house and provide adult conversation. I guess a lot of people would go insane if their mom was at their house for five weeks, but she’s really well behaved when she’s here. She respects our parenting choices, even if she doesn’t always agree with them. She learned the hard way that we won’t put up with crap and we’re going to do things our way regardless of her thoughts on the subject. She doesn’t love that I’m nursing Elsa, but she hasn’t made any of the remarks that she used to make when I was nursing Erik.

Plus, she’s scared of Mike. It’s pretty hilarious. He’s the most un-scary person ever, but she gets freaked out if he talks to her about any concerns or chores that need to be done. I guess she’s only used to yelling and screaming so she doesn’t know how to handle a person who can communicate effectively without resorting to violence.

In other news, I finally have a big chunk of background stress well on it’s way to being resolved. I put up a website for my MOMS Club chapter several months ago and it was hacked by evil malware people. I cleaned it up, threw on a WordPress installation, posted the bare minimum and ignored it. A blog was really not the best format for our needs. Last night I was looking it over and figured out how to create pages. That’s exactly what I needed, so now I am able to create the kind of site I need to create. Whoo-hoo! And I actually have time and energy to do so because my new VP is willing to take on some of the more pressing projects that have been filling up my head space.

Next topic:

I am so happy our November weather has been better than our October weather. We’ve been able to play outside without coats! In general this area is hell in the summer, but has really decent fall, winter and spring weather. I’ll take three great seasons for one hell season.

Unfortunately, that has not been the case this year, so it is nice to finally get some non-rainy, non-buggy outdoor time. The only problem is we can’t decide if we need the heat or A/C switched on. First world problems, eh?

We never had A/C or central heat growing up. I am so glad we don’t have to go out and chop wood every weekend and build a fire every morning. Fire building sucks big time. When I was in junior high and high school I would often be the one building the fire in the morning, or at least the one stoking it up. Not fun. I bet my clothes always smelled like smoke. They were also covered in black dog hair all the time. No wonder I didn’t have any friends.

Anyone who pines for life in the old days must be crazy. When was toilet paper invented? I know my grandma had to use an outhouse when she was a kid. Not sure about the TP situation. A corn cob can’t be that effective, can it? I think if I lived in the old days I would want to die young. My butt would always itch, my teeth would constantly hurt, I’d be popping out babies left and right and wouldn’t even be able to hope that they made it past age 5. Life would suck.

I’m right cheery tonight, aren’t I?

Truly, I am cheery! I am glad I never had to live through all that.

I seriously need to get back to the gym. I went twice this week, but need to get back into the six times a week habit. I need the endorphins. When I get those exercise endorphins life is a lot easier to manage. Plus, it would be nice if I could shrink this belly a little. I was always very motivated to go when Erik was little because I needed that hour and a half of cheap babysitting. I don’t have that motivation now. Elsa is such an easy baby, even if she is turning into a little bully.

Hmmmm. Maybe I better get her in there every day so they can train her to behave. The childcare at my gym is excellent and I credit them with teaching Erik the basics of getting along with other kids.

The kids both had well child visits this week. The doctor told me that when Elsa hits, bites or pinches I should just firmly tell her no and she’d stop.

I had to pick myself up off the floor after having a laugh attack.

If we tell her no, she looks at us, throws her head back and starts laughing. Then she might lunge in for another bite.

I suppose I should post the well child numbers for my own memory. Erik was 49 lbs, 46 inches. He surprised everyone. He’s always been in the 5th percentile for height, but he suddenly shot up to the 60th percentile. I thought he was getting awfully tall! This summer I was worried that they would get on me about his weight because he was starting to look a little husky. Even when he didn’t look husky, they would always chew my ass about his weight. I guess growing 2 inches in 2 weeks sucks that fat right out of your belly. His BMI was the lowest it’s ever been and the doctor was quite pleased.

Why can’t I grow 2 inches in 2 weeks? I think I would probably need to grow at least a foot to get my BMI to an acceptable range.

Elsa is chunkier than ever. She was 30.9 lbs, 32.5 inches. At one point she had dropped down to the 95th percentile in weight, but she’s back off the charts. Way, way off the charts. I know three year olds who are smaller than she is (granted, they are super tiny for their age). I am still not worried about it because my niece and nephew were both total chunks and now they are super skinny. They are still built solid, but you can count their ribs.

I have Elsa back in cloth diapers most of the time. I moved up to the size large fuzzibunz. She doesn’t like any of the one size diapers, and I don’t blame her. They don’t really fit around her legs. So much for the “birth through potty training” promise. My mom claimed she was going to potty train her. I scoffed, but bought some training pants. My mom arrived, put her in the training pants and told her to use the potty. When Elsa didn’t get it, my mom gave up. I am still laughing.

Is that enough rambling for one night? I do know how to jump from topic to topic without a transition, don’t I? Not that it takes skill, exactly. One might argue a more skilled person would at least attempt to tie things together.

I decided I didn’t need to be pouty about not getting a good pic of Elsa in her fairy costume. I did what Heather suggested and took the bull by the horns. I went out and took some pictures today. No need to get hung up on the date, right? Just take an effing picture, for goodness sake. Stop with the angst and tears! Not that Heather said or implied any of the above, except that it was ok to take the picture on a day that wasn’t Halloween. I was the one turning my own brain into pretzel mush. Whatever that means. Twisty channels of thought that get squashed. . . something?

I still didn’t get the Perfect Picture, but I got a few that will work. I hate my photography skills and become more unhappy with them every single day. Perhaps I just need to get my eyes checked. Maybe that’s why everything looks blurry. I’ve decided that my many cameras are not to blame for my lack of gorgeous photos. It must be user error.

Moving on. . .

It was freezing on Halloween, but it was lovely today–in the 60s I believe–so I didn’t feel guilty about parading Elsa around in a flimsy little outfit. Btw, our house is not for rent. Our yard is in the shade, so I did the photo shoot in the common area across the street while several neighbors watched. We’re. . . cozy.

Erik wanted to help and was doing a pretty good job, except that he kept rolling around between the camera and the subject. Silly kid.

This was the last good Erik moment of the day.

After the photo shoot, we came in, fed him a snack and told him it was karate day.

The siren started wailing and it was full on hell for an hour. I’ve made a new rule: no playing outside unless you promise to go to karate without whining and crying. So he whined and cried about going outside for a whole hour while screaming that he wasn’t going to karate. At least he was honest? That’s the only positive thing I can get out of the ordeal. He didn’t say what I wanted to hear and then go back on a promise. He just refused to make a promise he knew he wouldn’t keep.

Finally I threw all 50 pounds of him over my shoulder like a bag of potatoes, carried him up the stairs and deposited him on his bed.

Elsa was also being a pill (I’m pretty sure she’s teething) so I was about to lose my mind. Even my mom declared that her darling grandchildren were behaving like hellions.

Mom took Elsa outside to play and I went to the basement to get away from the yelling coming from the top of the stairs. A few minutes later Erik appeared, fully dressed for karate. Good choice!

He did great at karate, but when it was time for leadership class (he does a basic class, then a more advanced leadership class that we are paying for and he refuses to go to) he screamed and cried and refused to line up. No amount of cajoling, threatening or anger was good enough to get him to go. I’ve told him he owes me $20 for the class (I think it was really $10 if I do a breakdown of price per hour) and he owes his grandma $14 because she bought him a sword just for this class. They’re learning a really cool sword dance and I thought he liked it the two times he went.

It was really pleasant when we got home. I’d already told him if he didn’t do leadership he couldn’t go to his school’s academic game night. He was screaming bloody murder about that and the money he owes us. Elsa was biting everyone and whining. I needed Calgon to come take me away, but someone had to cook dinner.

Erik says he can’t go to leadership because the other students aren’t expecting him. He won’t listen when we tell him the other kids don’t matter and that the teacher is expecting him. We even make it a point to have him talk to the teacher about going to the class. I don’t really even understand the complaint. “They aren’t expecting me! *whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeee*”

What the hell? Can someone explain this kid to me?

At least the day wasn’t all bad. I met up with a really awesome mom this morning and we had a great play date. She just joined our MOMS Club board as an emergency fill-in for the vice-president position. She is full of energy and ideas and she follows through. She’s already got a mock-up of the website done, agreed to host our Christmas party, has taken over planning for our fall service project and has agreed to help me with the newsletter. You have no idea what a huge burden this all takes off me. We have five people on the board, but until she joined only three of us really did anything and only two of us were enthusiastic about it. I am so glad I can hand all this stuff over to someone I trust to get the job done. She’s way more creative than me, so I know she will be a huge asset to our club. She even has a craft blog! I haven’t asked for the address yet, but I will in the near future. For Halloween she took a round bowl, filled it with cantaloupe chunks and then added black grapes to make a jack-o-lantern face. And she thought of that on her own! I was very impressed.

To top it all off, her husband has the job Mike used to have. Not for the same company, but the same job! No one ever has that job. I about died laughing when I asked what her husband does and she got the same look and voice that I always have when I try to explain Mike’s job. She about fell out of her chair when I knew what she was talking about. No one ever understand the concept of satellite controller/engineer. She invited us over for dinner next week so the manly men could meet and talk shop. Not every day you meet another guy who flies satellites.

Anyway, I guess I better head off to bed. I need all the sleep I can get. My mom is leaving on Saturday and it will be back to “all me, all the time” during our very long days. Mike works insanely long hours at his new job, which leaves me with insanely long, lonely hours at home. I’m glad we have a roof over our heads, plenty of food to eat and enough discretionary money to be comfortable, but I sure wish I could see my husband sometimes. I hate that he’s so stressed out and that I’m so stressed out and that we rarely have time to connect with each other. As sappy as it sounds, he’s not only my husband–he’s my best friend. I miss him.

Great picture, huh? Elsa wouldn’t stand still for a single second, so I didn’t get any cute Halloween pictures. I am seriously thinking about dressing her in her costume and taking her in for professional pictures. Nothing says Halloween like mid-November professional pictures of a little fairy in a dirty dress.

This is the only non-blurry pic I have of her. I sort of feel like crying. Pictures used to be so important to me, but these days I just don’t have the time or energy to do long photo shoots with uncooperative children. She’s going to hate me when she’s older, isn’t she? Plus, this costume was kind of weird on her. It was a size 3-4 year, but she could barely squeeze into it. I had to put some warm clothes on underneath it and I skipped the fairy wings and wand because it seemed to be a little much for her to handle. All in all, not conducive to super cute pics.

Despite the lack of pictures, we had a pretty fun Halloween. We went to a MOMS Club party at the park in the morning and did a big group trick-or-treating thing in our neighborhood in the evening. I swear Elsa was a woodland fairy. It was pretty cold outside (there were still remnants of snow on the ground) but that didn’t faze* her. She plopped herself in a mud puddle and refused to be moved from it. Every time I’d take her out, she’d find it again and stomp around, before sitting. Her poor little shoes are ruined. How do you clean leather shoes? And let’s not even talk about her costume. It said hand wash, so I guess I may try that tomorrow. Not that it matters much. It was a cheapy from Costco, but it would be nice to be able to keep it around for dress up.

Can’t leave Erik out, though I already posted pictures of him a few days ago.

Elsa was pretty hilarious, as toddlers tend to be. She couldn’t figure out the trick-or-treating thing at all. First, she wanted to go into all the houses. Then she didn’t want to put the candy in her bag–she just wanted to hold it. She would get her hands full at one house, then deposit the candy in the bowl at the next house. She hardly got any candy (not a bad thing!).

I was glad we were doing a big group trick or treat activity because I couldn’t keep up with Erik while dragging Elsa along. Other grownups were comfortable with keeping him in check, so he had fun being slightly independent and running from house to house. I have a really good friend who I never talk about on this blog who came over for the festivities. I knew that she or her husband would keep Erik from being devoured by rouge jack-o-lanterns.

This friend and I been friends since Erik was 6 months old and her son was 4 months old. Erik thinks her kids are his cousins. She’s moving to Virginia and I’m so sad about that, even though it is just a 40 minute drive. We’re on opposite ends of the spectrum in many regards, but she’s really easy to talk to and very relaxed and upbeat. Even when she was working full time we always made a point to get together every couple of weeks. She’s joining our Campfire club** so at least we’ll get to see them once a month.

So are we supposed to say what we are thankful for this month? Today I’ll say I’m grateful for good friends. I’m grateful for the friend I mentioned above and I’m grateful for another friend that I see at least once a week. She’s another lady who is totally upbeat, relaxed and down to earth. Her son and Erik are two little peas in a pod. I feel like she’s a kindred spirit and I’m so glad she seems to agree. I’ve always liked her, but assumed that someone as fun and happy and outgoing as she was would have plenty of other friends. It turns out that she’s more of an introvert and seems to really enjoy my company.

Usually she calls on Wednesday afternoon to see if we want to meet at a park, so I figured she would call today since we had gorgeous weather. I didn’t want to call her because she has a baby and car pool and I never know when to call. I had to run to a couple of stores to try to find wall pockets***, so I told my mom that if Nina called to tell her we’d meet her at a park of her choice at 4 pm.

Sure enough, Nina called.

I’m still laughing at her reaction. She thought I was a mind reader because she had no idea she was going to call me and didn’t know she had a routine, so how would I know she was going to call me? I’m just that good. Mwhahahahaha. But really, she does have a routine and I’m very thankful that I’m a part of that routine.

And that’s all she wrote for tonight. Erik’s early morning school schedule kicks my butt.

*is it faze or phase?
**I finally got Campfire paperwork mailed in, so hopefully we’ll do our training soon.
***I got clear ones with some pretty file folders; I know you were dying to hear the results of my organization quest

I’m sure you’re probably tired of seeing this all over your social media, but I can’t believe it’s snowing! When I was a kid it was usual to go trick-or-treating in the snow, but I haven’t lived in the mountains of Oregon for years. Hopefully this does not portend things to come this winter.

In better news, I went to a really wonderful girls’ craft night last night. There were only four of us and we all got along great. There was no petty arguing, no passive/aggressive bullshit, no bitchiness. Just genuine laughter, encouragement and conversation. Much needed after spending a day volunteering at Erik’s school.

My craft area is such a mess that I couldn’t pull together all the necessary components for a project, so I spent 3 1/2 hours pulling paper off the backs of my paper pieced Harry Potter blocks. It was probably the best decision I could have made. It was great for keeping my hands busy but left my brain free to concentrate on the conversation. All that time, and I didn’t even finish half of them. I knew I should be pulling the paper as I went, but it is so boring that I blocked it out of my mind. I need another craft night just to finish the job. A quilt filled with printer paper backing doesn’t sound soft and cozy.

One of the ladies just got a Silhouette cutting machine and said I can come over and use it. We’re going to figure out how to import fonts so I can cut out freezer paper stencils for book titles. I’ll use the stencils to paint titles on all the books on Harry Potter’s bookshelf.

We really need to start a monthly craft night. It was very therapeutic and I came home in a great mood. I need more me time that is solely focused on things I enjoy. My current me time is spent with a baby on my lap watching old TV shows. Not exactly what most people mean by “me time.”

I spent almost the whole of Friday at Erik’s school. I helped close out the book fair, which was pretty tiring. There was a rush of kids who had big baggies full of change. They didn’t know how much they had, many of them were not capable of making piles of dollars (and they were fifth graders!), they didn’t understand the concept of sales tax and they wanted to spend every single penny. “Can I buy this $4.99 fancy thing! Look! I have 12 dimes!” They’d come up with a pile of books worth $20 and be shocked when they were told their $5 bill wouldn’t cut it.

We also had a lot of parents coming in to return a particularly cheap quality diary that cost their daughters $10.99. One dad was so cute. He kept saying he was so proud of his daughter for wanting to buy 10 books. Ten! She must love to read. He wrote a check for all the books and then she came home with this diary, a stuffed cat and a bunch of other crap. No books. He was very sad. He said he would spend any amount of money she wanted on books, but he couldn’t spend that much money on crap.

I was able to rush home for some lunch, but then it was right back to school.

We don’t have school on Monday, so we had the Halloween parade and party on Friday.

We helped the kids put on their costumes, which was easier than I thought it would be. The majority of them had costumes that slipped right over their clothes. There was one little boy that I felt totally sorry for. It almost makes me cry just thinking about. He had a really old, ratty, smelly costume that didn’t fit properly. It looked more Elsa’s size than a kindergartener size. I was able to get it on him, but the feet stopped at his knees. I snapped up the back, but then I saw that it was supposed to snap in the crotch (for diaper changes, perhaps?). I told the teacher I wasn’t snapping up his crotch and she agreed with me. I don’t need to be on the evening news for Halloween abuse.

Erik made an excellent Colin Creevy, even though he was supposed to be Harry Potter. I got him cheapo “nerd glasses” instead of the more expensive Harry Potter glasses and I never found any black hair spray. He was quite happy with his costume, so that’s the important thing. Maybe I can color his hair with a marker on Monday.

In theory, I liked the way our class party was handled. We all sent in $4 and someone bought all the supplies. Perfect!

I have no idea who that someone was, but whoever s/he was boggled my mind. They served an ice cream cake (total yum idea, but the kids refused to eat it), a coffee cake from Panera (what 5 year old wants coffee cake? None in Erik’s class) and a little bag of M&Ms. It was a bizarre selection for a kindergarten Halloween party. Why not go to the local bakery or grocery store and buy some themed cookies and cupcakes. I did think the ice cream cake was a good idea, but they are so expensive and none of the kids would even try it so it turned out to be a waste. I couldn’t believe Erik turned his nose up at ice cream.

One mom was a freak and went around and ate the ice cream cake that was left on kids’ plates. It just about made me gag. I like ice cream cake, but not enough to eat after a random kid. I won’t even eat after my own children.

Sometimes I don’t even know why I bother trying to get professional pictures done. There are usually a few really great ones, but is it really worth the two hours of pure hell?

Ok, yes. It is. But good god, let me tell you about the hell of tonight.

Since Erik is in school full time, we had to pick an evening hour to get the best deal (weekends are more expensive and crowded). I did everything I could to prepare the kids for a good evening–fed them, made sure Elsa had a good nap, had water for them. Still, portraits bring out the absolute worst in my children.

Usually Erik is surly and refuses to smile. Elsa screams bloody murder. A fun time is not had by anyone.

This time Elsa was super happy and running all around laughing. Erik was also happy, but he was in super-hyper-extreme mode and kept trying to show off for the photographer by jumping around and trying to plan the photo poses and push Elsa out of the pictures.

It was going pretty ok until some other customers came in and the photographer had to go take are of them. Why they can’t hire a receptionist and a photographer I don’t know, but in the 20 minutes (or possibly three hundred years) that the photog was gone, my son went completely bat shit crazy. He was running in circles, getting into everything, jumping, hopping, and refusing to sit still. We talked to him, threatened him, held him. Did everything short of beating him. He still didn’t get it and would NOT behave. If we didn’t need him for the photo I would have had my mom take him out to the car. He’s lucky he has his six year well child check tomorrow. I could have easily beat him within an inch of his life when we got out of there*. As it was, he lost all fun privileges for the evening and won’t be getting a gold stripe or a sword at karate tomorrow.

Elsa had a very specific idea of where she wanted to sit and it didn’t mesh well with the reality of the situation. She was running around like a crazy person, and refused to sit still when we posed her. That’s behavior I would expect from an 18 month old, but was frustrating. And then we’d get her in a good situation and the photog would start her little “make baby happy tricks’, but Erik would jump in or make a weird face or yell or try to defend his sister against the tickle lady. It was frustrating beyond belief.

The only good thing was that Mike was there. Usually I deal with this alone or with my mom. I need Mike. He’s calm and can help control the kids, though tonight I thought he was going to lose it on Erik. Then we’d really be up a creek without a paddle. When Mike looks ready to blow, you know it’s bad.

To top it off, I spent way too long blowing out my hair this morning. I am proud that I am finally able to blow it out and get good results. Only took me 37 years to learn how to do my hair. But apparently I haven’t learned to check the weather. It rained and my poor hair went totally flat. I couldn’t find the right make-up since I don’t normally wear any. I couldn’t find any decent pants that fit. The last time I bought dress pants was a year before Erik was born. As you can imagine, it was depressing to try those on. Yikes. Why haven’t I given them away on freecycle? Just when I think I am accepting my body, I go and do a dumb move like trying on clothes that fit seven years ago.

But seriously, what would change if I was a few sizes smaller? I’d have a better wardrobe. That’s the only thing that would change. Why do we have such an aversion to fat on people above the age of 2? Everyone loves a fat baby. When does the fat go from cute to disgusting? Why do I look at myself in the mirror and loath myself just because I have more volume than other people?

Anyway, I need to go to bed early tonight. I’m completely done for. But first, I have to go stalk the pintrest board that Heather made for me. Of course I was immediately drawn to the most expensive wall system on there. It doesn’t seem to be in production anymore. Booo! I think I’m going for clear ones with fancy scrapbook paper taped into them to make them to my taste. Thank you, Heather! I had no idea I wasn’t the first brilliant person to think of hanging all my crap on the wall. Kind of like the time I thought I invented a totally cool warm, sock pull on thing that couldn’t be pulled off by Elsa. Someone pointed out they’re called “tights” and have been in production for hundreds of years. I is so smart.

*For new readers, I have never beat the child. Don’t worry about his safety.

Life’s just been rolling along here at Chez Possum. The school is having a book fair this week, so I’ve volunteered over there a couple of times. It is certainly interesting to see everything from a parent’s perspective instead of a teacher’s perspective. I would have been a much, much better teacher if I would have had a kid of my own. Because every 22 year old needs a baby!

Not that there is anything wrong with a 22 year old having a baby, but I was unattached and very naiive. I didn’t need a baby. I don’t know how teachers have time to teach and have a baby. I was usually working till 11 pm every night my first couple of years.

I guess I’m now in charge of grading math facts tests for Erik’s class once a week. It’s quite a system and I don’t really understand it, but I figure I’ll get the hang of it. I wish they did Accelerated Math instead, but they’ve never heard of that. I wonder if they do Accelerated Reading? I hate AR. I understand the point and think it could be useful if used carefully, but I’ve only ever seen it abused. I don’t know how you can make kids like reading, but forcing them to only pick books from a certain list sucks. The best way I know to get kids to read is to put high interest books in front of their faces. And maybe read the first chapter out loud. And do voices. I like to do voices. I’m a dork.

[Aside: how are Pop-Tarts considered appropriate breakfast food? Inspired by a commercial.]

I am so glad Erik lucked out and got a great kindergarten teacher. I don’t know how she does it, but she has the calmest, quietest kindergarten class I’ve ever seen. At first I thought I was just a really sucky substitute teacher and this was normal classroom behavior, but then I hung around and saw all the other classes at the book fair. I don’t know her secret, but she needs to share it with the other teachers. Especially the fifth grade teachers. The fifth graders were exhausting. They came in like a wave of chaos, scrambled up all the books, and left without a backwards glance.

One of the kindergarten teachers wouldn’t even let the kids write their names on their wishlist papers. I was pretty shocked by her attitude–“They can’t do it, I’m not going to let them do it.”

Whaaaaaa? What happened to high expectations?

She was not a special needs teacher. I know a couple of the kids in her class.

Erik’s teacher not only expected her kids to write their names down, she expected them to do their best to copy down the names of the books. I think I would have to have a freakin’ conniption fit if Erik was in the other lady’s class. He’s been able to write his name since he was 3 years old. That was the expectation at his preschool, not some kind of helicopter parent move on my part.

Elsa continues to delight. I wish I could fold up our days together and pull them out in 20 years or whenever I need a pick-me-up in the future. If she’d been my first, I would probably be working on baby 3 or 4 right now.

Or not. I enjoy sleep. I will have sleep again someday. Right?

Not that she doesn’t get in toddler trouble. I still don’t know how she got an egg out of the fridge, cracked it into my junk drawer, and left the almost perfect shell on the counter.

I want to record all the cute things she does, but it’s not really interesting to read or write about. How can I capture the tilt of her head and the sparkle in her eye? Guess that’s what a video camera is for, eh? I’m not so good with the video camera.

The biggest, most exciting news of my life is that I’ve finally figured out what to do with my dining room. I am so sick and tired of all the clutter. The amount of paperwork that Erik brings home is staggering. Plus, of course, we have bills, coupons, yadda yadda yadda. It all ends up on my dining room table and I never know where to put it. My dining room already has a shoe dresser from IKEA, a buffet table thing that’s supposed to hold craft supplies, a kid’s table and a big recycling bin. My mom keeps telling me to put a desk in there too, but where? There’s no more room!

I put my brain to the problem and decided I need some wall pockets aka wall files. Problem? All the ones I can find look way too office like. I don’t need my dining room to remind me of a depressing office door. I just started looking so I’m sure I’ll come up with something. I’m not allowed to buy anything until Nov. 1 anyway if we want to keep the month in the black.

How did it get so late? Guess I’ll go to bed.

This picture cracks me up. The look on his face! The camo! The purple beads! It all combines for hilarity, at least in my mommy heart. You can see the finished jack-o-lantern on flickr, if you are so inclined.

My mom bought him a whole camo wardrobe since he says it’s his favorite color. Someone hold me. I need reassurances.

Someone tell me that he is not going to turn into a drunken deer hunter who has a spit bottle in his front seat and a rifle in his gun rack. Some camo people are clean cut military men, out saving the world. Not that I like the idea of my son toting a gun in middle of a war. It would be better than the drunken alternative, though. I think.

Better thoughts. . .

When we went to the pumpkin patch, the farmer told the kids we could roast the seeds and eat them. Erik was all over that, but didn’t like my recipe (salty). He and grandma wanted something with cinnamon and sugar, so I found a recipe and told them how to make them.

Too bad they burned them to a crisp. No tasty pumpkin seeds for us, unless you like the taste of charcoal in your mouth.

Who cares about burnt pumpkin seeds, when you get alone time with your husband.

Mike and I went on a date last night! Wonders never cease!

Mike’s been wanting to try a Moroccan restaurant down in one of the big, fancy retail areas, so that’s just what we did.

It was an incredibly surreal experience. The tables were all squished together, so you couldn’t help but overhear everything your neighbors said. I guess it must be a very “cozy” family experience because it seemed like a lot of the people were regulars and they just started talking to us, like we were all one big happy family. To be fair, I’ve sat farther away from people at my own personal dinner table so it did feel awkward not to be friendly with these people who were 12 inches away, but it was still strange.

The owner was a really nice guy who was extremely upset because Yelp had his restaurant listed as closed. I’d be upset too. The table next to us was giving him advice, but he didn’t really seem to understand. I hope he gets it worked out soon. I liked him, so I really wanted to like his restaurant. Really, really badly. But. . . Well. . No.

Overall the food was hit or miss. We were having an adventure so we ordered The Royal Feast. We thought it would be sample sized bits of everything, but it was HUGE portions of tons of different foods so we were totally stuffed by the end of the evening. It was a very good way to find out what we liked and what we didn’t like. Basically, I think I like Moroccan food, but I think I would like it a lot better somewhere else. Mike said the lamb was amazing, but I couldn’t try it. My brain wouldn’t let me. Lamb. Baby sheep. Baaaaaaaaaaa.

They had this really weird chicken pie thing that was like baklava, only with chicken in the middle. I’ve never had chicken covered with cinnamon and sugar before. At first I hated it, but by the end I kind of liked it. They had some really good chicken kebobs, some really bad beef kebabs, hummus with various meats, and tea that looked like urine.

We were there for two hours. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a long meal in my life.

We had a pretty bad seat because the live entertainment sat right next to us and brought their friends. They were probably in their 70s, but I’m not really sure about that. The man was having a birthday, so we had to listen to everyone go on and on about that and take a ton of pictures and get up and down and up and down and up and down to congratulate him. This wouldn’t have mattered, but we were so close together that we kept having fat old lady butts land on our table. The music was pretty good, and he was a fun entertainer, but it was pretty weird when the old lady got up and started belly dancing. She didn’t have a costume on or anything and didn’t even take her purse off. She was good at it, but it was just weird.

Then she sat down AGAIN and brushed her butt up on our table and my face AGAIN.

Later, people brought him some balloons, but they let go and the balloons flew up to the top of the restaurant and no one could reach them. It was a whole ordeal to get them down with a broomstick and tape and luck. The restaurant exploded with applause when the balloons were saved.

Did I mention there were three young couples (I’m including ourselves in this category) and then a bunch of 70-80 year olds? Not that I have anything against old people, but it was definitely not the hippest place on earth. But when have I ever been hip? And these weren’t the fancy old ladies that you often see around here. As you know, we live near the DC area so a lot of the people around here are very well heeled. These people had on what amounted to clown clothes. I’ve never seen the likes of it in this little shopping area we were at. It is usually a little rich for our blood, but not at this place.

Overall it was an interesting adventure, but I doubt we’ll go back to that particular restaurant. Next weekend I want Mike to take me someplace nice in downtown DC (Maybe Co Co Sala, a restaurant and chocolate boutique). My mom goes back on November 5th, so we need to take advantage of free babysitting while we have the chance.

Today was all about productivity. Mike scared the crap out of my mom by calling an all hands meeting and then listing out the chores that needed to be done. For some reason she finds Mike scary, which is completely bizarre. Mike is the most mild mannered, patient, kind man that you’re likely to meet. I think that’s what scares her. She’s used to loud, aggressive, violent, drunk men. Mike is an unknown. She’s scared of what will happen if he blows. Does she think he’s going to spank her?

You’d think he had threatened her with a beating, the way she hopped to the job she was given. I cleaned out the fridge, she vacuumed the whole house and he cleaned up all the dining room clutter. The dining room is our clutter magnet and I can’t stand it. I need an office. How do you create an office in a townhouse that you can’t add on to? I guess I need to put a storage shed on the deck and call it my office. I’m not sure that would meet HOA standards.

Something’s gotta give, though. I can’t believe the amount of paperwork that we get from kindergarten. I try to take care of it the moment Erik hits the door. I pull out his folders, read everything and take care of it immediately (assuming I have cash on hand. You need a lot of dollar bills on hand when you have a kindergartner. They always need money for something), but things still pile up.

I usually love to have my mom come visit because she cleans and organizes my whole house. I can never find anything when she leaves, but it’s refreshing to have the house deep cleaned and everything put away somewhere. This time she has been so depressed that she’s just been napping and eating popcorn (and getting it everywhere). Not that I expect my mom to be my free housekeeper, but it is very disconcerting to see her acting so different from her normal self. She was telling me that she feels totally alone in the world because she can’t burden myself or my sister with her problems. It wouldn’t be fair to us because we have our own lives to live. Now she doesn’t have a husband, mother or best friend. They’ve all died in the past three years.

It makes me so sad for her and so angry on her behalf. She is such a great woman that she deserved a life of love, happiness and harmony. She chose to stay with an abusive alcoholic. I have no idea why. Now she can’t move on.

She’s only 62, but she is not interested in developing any further romance or relationships in her life. I think she could still have a lot of fun in life, but only if she is open to it. I don’t know if that will ever happen, or if she will just bury herself in my sister’s troubles and continue to let chaos reign supreme. I just want my mommy to be happy, but I know I can’t create happiness for her.

Btw, I don’t really know why my sister is in counseling but I believe it is court ordered. Something to do with a gun, maybe? I think they must have figured out that I blab all their business all over the internet and decided to shut down the info train. Wise move on their part, but it makes my internet blabbing much less entertaining. She’s been sober since July and is really in to her new church. I personally hate the idea of a person needing church to behave in a moral way. The god of the Bible is anything but moral (can we say genocide, anyone?), but if it gives her something to focus on and keeps her out of trouble, I guess that’s good. This church seems a lot more innocuous than the place she was going before. The other church had a control freak charlatan for a preacher, which is never good in any situation. At least this new church seems to want to do good and doesn’t seem scammy, even if I personally don’t agree with their message.

Ok, I better scurry up to bed. Back to the grind tomorrow. Ugh.

I can’t believe how fast October is flying. I keep thinking we have a couple of weeks until Halloween, but I realized we have one week! One! And a few days.

In the past I have made the mistake of going Halloween shopping the weekend before and not having any options. I keep dragging my feet about getting Erik’s costume because I fear he will change his mind, but thank goodness I decided to get it done this weekend. I literally got the last Harry Potter robe at Target. Thankfully it fits him. They didn’t have any accessories, but I did pick up a pair of “nerd glasses” that should work, a ladies scarf that is close enough to be called Gryfinndor and a generic kid’s witch hat. I had him put it all one and he really did look like a young wizard, even though he had a camo shirt on underneath.

I bought Elsa’s costume weeks and weeks ago. She’s so little she doesn’t get an opinion. She’s going to be some generic fairy princess thing-a-majig from Costco.

I did a major shopping trip at Macy’s yesterday! I like to do our Christmas photos in October because the studio is less insane, so I finally scheduled us for next Wednesday evening. We decided we would have the whole family in the portrait, which will be a first for us. I hate having my picture taken.

Last year Grain_Damaged sent a beautiful, velvety Christmas dress for Elsa. It fits perfectly this year, so I used that as a starting point for our portrait plan. It’s burgundy, so I decided to go with a gray and burgundy theme. I found a grey and burgundy sweater for Erik, which will go perfect under his Gryffindor robes as well. I bought two different sweaters for Mike to choose from–a plain gray or a burgundy with gray stripe. I think we’ll use the second for the picture. I bought myself one of those flowy over sweaters that are so popular this year. Anyone know what they are called? I’ll probably wear a black tank underneath it. I need to go with a dark color.

So happy to have that done! Now I just have to get my brows waxed, get the kids haircuts and hope that everyone behaves. Erik is notorious for acting the fool during picture sessions and Elsa freaks out around strangers (and most friends) so it could turn into a nightmare. It usually is. Maybe it will be better with Mike there. He has a wonderful calming effect on all of us.

In other news, I don’t know what to do about Elsa and the potty situation. For those who are new, I cloth diapered her for the longest time. I was doing it for three reasons: 1) Financial, 2) Environmental and 3) Comfort for the baby.

Reason number three went out the window when I finally realized that her constant diaper rash cleared up as soon as we used disposables on a trip. I started using them when we’d go out and at night and it made such a difference on her poor little butt skin.

Now when I try to put a cloth diaper on her she started telling me “no no no no no no no no no” and takes it off. She climbs off the changing tables, telling me “dipo dipo dipo” and brings me a disposable.

So obviously she prefers disposable.

Hot damn.

Disposables are expensive. I think there’s been a 50% increase in price since Erik was a baby. I wanted to get the new Huggies slip-ons but they were $20 for 50 diapers.

My mom claimed she would potty train Elsa while she was here since she potty trained me when I was 15 months.

Guess how well that has worked?

Not at all.

Elsa has a bladder the size of an elephant and only pees every four or five hours. She’s dry all night. Good signs for potty training, yes, but it is almost impossible to catch her and get her onto the potty when she is peeing so rarely.

And now it’s time to go carve a jack-o-lantern. Whoo-hoo! Pumpkin guts!

After a rainy weekend, things cleared up and we were able to have two days of sunny farm fun before the rain began again.

On Monday I joined Erik’s kindergarten field trip. I was really surprised that hardly any parents volunteered, and most of the volunteers were construction worker dads. Not the dynamic I expected, but it was really nice to see them working with the kids. Plus, the kids listened to them better than they listened to the moms. Sucks, but true.

I was wondering why they planned a field trip at Summers Farm, a place at least 30 minutes away, when they have a very similar place about five minutes away from the school. After the trip, I totally understand.

This place was excellent. They had everything really well organized and they had lots of large group friendly activities.

More pics at flickr if you are so inclined.

The jumping pillow was the most popular station, by far. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it was pretty dang awesome. I want one for my backyard! Can you just imagine turning a little townhouse backyard into a giant whoopie cushion?

They also had a big corn pit (similar to a ball pit), tons of big slides, little kid mazes, a giant corn maze that we didn’t actually go through, a hay ride to the pumpkin patch, and some other things that we had to skip even though we were there for 2 1/2 hours.

The only thing missing? Decent pumpkins.

We’ve had a ton of rain this year and it’s pretty much destroyed the pumpkin crops around here. The kids really wanted all orange pumpkins, but they were almost all green and rotting. I was in charge of one little boy who was bound and determined to get the perfect pumpkin and every time he found one that had a bit of green or any other blemish he would open his jaws, throw back his head and start howling. I think his jaws were on hinges.

I thought chaperoning a kindergarten class would be a nightmare, but there was almost zero stress. The kids all stayed with the big group and the farm was arranged in such a way that there was a natural flow and no one was running wild. I was in charge of five boys–Erik, a neighbor kid, a kid I know from social outings and two strangers. Knowing 3 of the 5 was very helpful. I got in a little trouble when it warmed up and the two strangers took their coats off and changed their looks, but I just had to re-calibrate my brain and we were good to go. I’m so glad my mom was here so I was able to go and help out and watch Erik have fun with his classmates.

The next day Elsa and I went to the local pumpkin patch with our MOMS Club. It is a neat place, but after seeing Summers Farm, I wasn’t as impressed as I used to be. They have a ton of scarecrow type characters all around that are fun for the grownups or older kids to look at, but it’s not quite the same as a jumping pillow. Of course they do have some things for the kids to do, but it is not as well laid out and not as big or fun.

And Elsa?

Not impressed.

I got this picture by sticking my camera under her face and pointing up. She spent the whole hay ride looking down with this look of “what the hell? Why are you making me sit on this nasty stuff?” on her face.

Then we arrived at the pumpkin field and it didn’t get any better.

She stepped right on a rotten pumpkin, breaking through the shell in a giant squish and getting rotten pumpkin guts all over her foot. The pictures I took from the day crack me up because it’s like a series on disgust. She has the exact same look on her face in every single picture.

The tour came with two apples each, and that made her happy. She protected the apple with her life and gave anyone who came near a death glare. They were not going to get her apple.

She liked the apple so much that I went into their farm market and bought a whole bag of them. Did you know a bag of apples is called a peck? I suppose it is a bag of a certain size, but I had no idea it was a peck. Erik is quite the reader these days and read that it was a peck so wanted to know what a peck was. I tried to explain that it was a measurement and the bag was a peck. Round and round we went and neither of us know what a peck is, but he is sure that I am hiding the information from him. Maybe I should have googled it. Doh! Just now thought of that. Usually he just tells me “Uh, mommy, just go look it up on your computer.”

What on earth did we do before the days of instant information access? No wonder my brain gets so confused all the time and I can’t remember anything. My brain is full and I won’t stop filling it up with useless information.

I also bought a frozen apple walnut pie because I’ve heard the pies out there are fantastic. I was very skeptical, but it was really good. Yum yum yum. Not to be braggy, but I could make a pie just as good as this pie, but why would I want to? Pies are a ton of work. Buying a frozen pie that’s as good as homemade is a major win in my book.

Two very good pieces of news:

1) Kisha was once again my web jedi hero and saved the FFF, my fantasy book discussion site that I’ve had for years and years and years! I still need to figure out how it was compromised and get my laptop cleaned up, but the site is not a totally destroyed digital wasteland anymore.

2) I haven’t had a single bit of pain from my tooth extraction. It feels weird to have a big gaping hole in my gum, but there’s been no pain involved. I just wonder how I’m going to keep the hole clean. It could get pretty gross up in there. Does gum tissue fill in over time after a tooth extraction?

And now it’s time for bed. Whoo-hoo! Mike is still out of town, so I get to go sleep by myself with the baby. It always feels so strange to have him gone. The rhythm of his breathing is gone and I miss him. I am not a fan of these bimonthly trips to Arizona. I just looked up bimonthly and it can mean once every two months or twice a month. How’s that for confusing? In this case I mean once every two months. Way too often, but the other bimonthly would be much worse.