Freakin' Lice. Twice.

Summer is finally here!  Alleluia!  I feel like I've been waiting for summer to come all school year long.  By the end I was done.  Spent.  Finished.  If you haven't read Jen Hatmaker's blog entry calling herself "The Worst End of School Year Mom Ever," read it now.  And don't be upset if seventeen people haven't forwarded this to you already.  Your friends must think really highly of you.  Myself, well, let's just say lots of people thought I'd enjoy this.  Pretty sure I shouldn't take that as a compliment.

http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2013/05/30/worst-end-of-school-year-mom-ever

It is hilarious, timely and so on point.  With the exception of one person (who is clearly organized and energetic), every single person I talked to said, "Oh my God!  That is so me!  I could have written that!"  Yeah, no you couldn't.  You didn't have the energy to write it.  I honestly don't know when Jen mustered up the strength to sit at her computer for that long, attach video and pictures, and write thoughtfully and with that much humor.  I'm pretty sure my sense of humor dropped off somewhere in April.  And I couldn't even gather the strength for Pinterest much less writing something with which thousands of people could relate.  So, yeah, I'm with ya, Jen.  I don't know you at all, but we are sisters in this whole parenting adventure!  And thank you for speaking for all of us who were only capable of head nods and drool in May.

Which leads me to summer.  There was a lot leading up to summer.  Class parties.  Dance recitals.  PTA meetings.  Parent Board meetings.  Dance recitals.  Plays.  Performances.  A parade.  Dance recitals.  Special lunches.  Girl Scout events.  Team parties.  And did I mention the dance recitals?  Keep in mind that they also come with dress rehearsals.  Between the two girls, I spent three plus hours in dress rehearsal and I think seven (or eight?  it's a blur) hours in recitals. I'm sure you've figured out that I wasn't the one dancing, but let me tell you, I was exhausted.  I was literally sore from sitting so much!  Is that even possible?  The dance recitals almost did me in.  Smart people at the dance studio take a huge break before starting up again for the summer.  Brilliant.  It should be enough time for me to forget the pain.

OK, so it's now summer.  All that crap is over for the year, we've started off strong with swimming at friends' houses, having friends over for dinner, sleeping in, watching boatloads of TV and just generally being blobs.  (The kids needed to up their ante on the drool factor.  While I was plenty braindead by the end of the year, they were still kicking.)  So on the night of day four, (DAY FOUR!!!) Zachary complained about being itchy.  Want to know my response?  Yeah, you guessed it:  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  Sure enough, the boy had lice.  Oh.  My.  God.  This is how I get to start my summer?  Are you freakin' kidding me!?

I need to back up.  Over spring break this year, while in Northern California, after having stayed in other people's homes and visiting NINE other families, we discovered we had lice.  When we made the discovery, we were an hour away from our friends' house, where we were staying.  The lovely people at LoveBugs took pity on us, cleaned us up and sent us on our way.  (That sounds simple, but it was about three hours for two people to comb our four heads and hundreds of dollars.)  Meanwhile I was texting, calling and voxing everyone I knew to tell them to be on the lookout.  If you've ever had to make the call after the birthday party to tell everyone your kid threw up that night, has a fever, has pink eye, whatever it is, you get the feeling.  I've made all those calls.  For some reason this one is SO much worse!  Mostly because lice is a major pain in the ass.  You can take care of it yourself, but you probably won't do a very good job, so it will take a long time to get rid of it, and meanwhile you're risking exposure to everyone else around you.  Or you can pay God-sent people who will come to your house and comb you out.  Obviously this is a great option, but it's expensive!  And the vacuuming.  And the laundry.  And the laundry!  Loads and loads and loads of laundry.  My poor washing machine won't even make eye contact with me anymore.  It just groans, opens up and accepts the inevitable.  Like a baby eating squash.  Or me eating squash.  Blech.

Fortunately the day in Northern California when we discovered lice I had spent the day with three beautiful women (and their children) from my childhood.  I'd warned them ahead of time that Zachary suspected he had lice because he'd become paranoid during the car ride down.  (Mind you, I'd checked him before we left the house, found a nit - which I didn't know was a nit because it didn't look like the pictures I saw on the internet - dismissed it  and got in the car to go meet our friends.)  We had a great day, laughed and laughed and miraculously didn't share our bugs!  One of my friends had just finished up chemotherapy for lymphoma, which was found on a routine ultrasound when she was four months pregnant.  (Yes, you read that correctly.  Read it again if you need to.)  And here she was, at the park, with her two gorgeous daughters, the baby having literally saved her life, beautiful and happy and strong.  (This friend is one of the most incredible people I've ever met and if she doesn't become an inspirational speaker or write a book or somehow share herself with the world after all this is over, I will have to drag her around myself.  The way in which she has dealt with cancer, while pregnant and caring for a toddler, is unbelievable.  She has an incredible spirit, positivity, faith and has maintained the same sense of humor that cracked us up as seventh graders!  And now has no evidence of disease!  She really is a walking miracle.)

I send a text to the friends I saw that day, my head in a shower cap, neem oil stinking up the joint, and right away, this friend calls me.  "Lice sucks, " she said.  And you know what, it totally does.  But to hear that from my friend who had just gone through chemotherapy not only validated what I was going through, but also put things into perspective.  We joked about how much quicker it would be to get rid of the lice than cancer and how, comparatively speaking, LoveBugs was a huge bargain compared to the price of chemo.  We were also pretty sure that she wouldn't get lice seeing as she was sporting what she called "the Matt Lauer look."  She was just the person I needed to talk to that day, to talk me down off the ledge, to keep me from feeling too sorry for myself.

In the days since then, I have not stopped itching my head, constantly afraid of the lice coming back.  (Paranoia runs in the family.)  And of course it did.  Clearly someone in Zachary's world has it, as it is very definitely a new case of bugs.  It sucked to have to make those calls.  Again.  It was a bummer of a way to start the summer for sure, but not the end of the world.  I'm always trying to find the reason for things, the "why?" in God's greater plan.  I have to be honest, I'm still searching.  But I have made an amazing connection down here now with Angel from Lice Schmice.  Her website is http://www.liceschmice.net.  And, yes, I am plugging my lice lady!  She is truly an angel!  If you're in Southern California and you suspect those little buggers are in your home, then Angel's your girl.

So maybe the reason is to keep me humble.  Maybe it's a lesson in forgiveness and learning to not place blame.  (I have no idea where the lice is coming from and this is hard for me -- not in that I want to place blame, but in that I want some answers and I want to know that this won't come back into our house.)  Maybe it's a lesson in appreciating every day life, and appreciating the fact that I have my own washing machine and dryer and that I can (sort of) afford to have someone come to my house to deal with this for me.  Maybe it's just a lesson in lice removal.  (I've learned a lot this year!)  Whatever it is, I'm paying attention.  Summer 2013 has now officially begun.  Instead of spending our days doing nothing other than laundry and vacuuming, we are Legoing, playing board games, scootering, reading, swimming.  And gearing up for dancing to start again.

California Girl

This week is HOT! We have been so spoiled this summer, in that it really has been very cool and delightful. And I mean really delightful. We've hardly had to use our air conditioner at all. But the past couple days things have really gotten miserable. It's even a little muggy out. Ew. Our air conditioner is going most of the day and part of the night. And I am saying little prayers to the gods of heating and cooling that it continues to work. It's bad out there.

This morning we took Juliette to her gym class and then to run a couple of errands. I know the kids have had a big week... They've been swimming and going to friends' houses and having friends here. Annalise has had camp all afternoon and they're tired. But my goodness, I couldn't get those kids to motivate to do anything today! I asked them if they'd like to go to the library. "It's really cool there!" "No." Even Juliette... "Do you want to go to the library?" "No." "Do you want to get some books?" "NO!" with the emphatic head shake even. So we came home. The kids played and fought for a while. Juliette is napping and now I have two blobs on the couch watching a movie. Frankly, I don't blame them. With this weather all I want to do is be a blob also. I'm not sure my brain is even working well enough to read, much less write. (Forgive me if this makes no sense! It's the heat!) The heat just zaps the energy and motivation right out of us.

We really are spoiled here in Southern California with our weather. I would say probably 350 days of the year we can play outside -- maybe even more. There really are just a handful of days where it is really too hot or too rainy to play. And when I think of it that way, I really am grateful. Jason's parents and cousins live in Arizona and I always wonder how they survive the summers. Perhaps they hibernate. I think that's probably what I would do if I lived there. Just go into sleep mode and wake up in October. Maybe that's why the plastic surgery rates are so high there... If the hibernation thing didn't work out, then maybe we'd just be naked in our house all the time. My kids would be totally OK with that, but the UPS guy or my next door neighbor might appreciate it if I have a little work done. I have nursed three kids. I'm not as, well let's say, fit as I once was. And at the other end of the spectrum are my cousins who live back east. Whenever we visit Boston, I say I could live there. It really is such a great city. But my cousin says I wouldn't last a month! And she's probably right. It gets COLD there! Even if I could survive there myself, without kids, I'm pretty sure that, with kids, something would bring me down. It might be the constant wrestling with the winter clothing; getting them on to walk out to the car only to have to take them right back off to get into their carseats. Oh God! And what if they have to go to the bathroom? I think I'd just keep them all in diapers. Nobody uses a toilet until we're all home. And then there's that whole having to play inside all day thing. I'm pretty sure I would go stir crazy after just a couple of days. I think if I were to live in either place, I'd have to have a basement the size of a football field in order to survive. That might be kind of nice, actually. They'd be totally contained. No cars to dodge. No dirt for Juliette to eat. Hmmm, she might not like that. We'd have to get her a flower pot so she can get her iron. There's a reason it costs a couple arms and three or four legs to live in Southern California. It's the weather. That's it. We're paying for weather. Seems kind of ridiculous, especially on days like today. But for the 350 beautiful days of the year, it's worth every penny.

Dirty Camp

This week Annalise is participating in our local Girl Scout day camp. It is a camp I attended when I was a Brownie, and I am so excited that she is following in my footsteps. The camp takes place in the afternoon. The girls aren't picked up until 7:30, which means right to showers and bed. Annalise is exhausted and oh so dirty when she comes home. The camp takes place at a park in town, which I am convinced is the dirtiest, dustiest place on earth. It is full of hiking and horse trails, a frisbee golf course and dirt. And sticks. And dust. And a few weeds. Beautiful old oak trees. And dirt. I'm still not sure what all they do there all day. The answers are always a little vague. Yesterday they went on a hike. Today they learned how to make lanyards. They sing those same old songs that have been around since the beginning of time -- songs about bubblegum and worms and boom-chicka-booms. Yesterday she learned a song about being terrific but nobody knows it yet (except people do know... I think she's pretty great.). They do some cooking and then some more singing. Tomorrow they are going to hike to the cave to see the "one-eyed monster." Both Annalise and her friend Cora were pretty sure they didn't want to have anything to do with that at the beginning of the week. But today they both are considering going inside. We'll have to see. This camp is the highlight of their summer. And it's one of my highlights, too. My girl grows before my eyes when she goes to day camp. She leaves the house a little girl each afternoon, but she comes back a little taller, a little wiser, a little braver and a whole lot dirtier.

SUMMER!!!!!!!!!

Mrs. Rose, my tenth grade English teacher, would be extremely disappointed in me for my excessive use of exclamation points in the title of this entry ("Any more than two and you just seem crazy."), but I feel it entirely necessary. I am so excited that summer is here.

We have had a really busy year. I completely overextended myself (as you can tell by lack of blog entries). I don't feel like each individual kid was overextended, but as a whole, our family was. Not every family works this way, but in this family, pretty much, if one kid has tee ball, then we all go to tee ball. If one kid has dance, we all go. That's not to say we always stay the whole time, but it does mean that everyone is loaded and unloaded from the car quite a lot. Our afternoons were overly full, and I'm happy to take a break from that.

And apparently I am taking that whole "break thing" to the extreme. The kids are signed up for almost nothing this summer. Annalise will do a week of Girl Scout camp -- the funnest, dirtiest camp ever. And Juliette will continue her MyGym class over the summer. But that's it. We plan on doing nothing but playing, exploring, swimming and going on field trips. It's totally my kind of summer. I may be totally regretting this decision in a couple weeks, but for now, it suits us just fine. The fighting has stopped. The bickering, whining, complaining, over-tired melt downs -- all of it has stopped. We are back to going to bed after nine and Zachary, for one, is sleeping in until ten almost every day. It's so lovely! Last night we took a walk to get ice cream after dinner. We are going to make a tradition out of playing at Annalise's school every Wednesday evening. I am going to have a little cooking class with Annalise and three of her friends. We'll have lots of playdates and trips to the park and beach. But we'll also have lots of days like today, where at almost 1:00, three of the four of us are still in our pajamas. To me, this is what summer is all about.

"The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

Do you remember that song from the Staples ad? It's really a Christmas song, but in the ad, they are playing that song as the dad is gleefully throwing pencils and other school supplies into the cart, gliding through the store, as the kids sulk behind him. I never really got that ad. As a kid, I certainly didn't look forward to the first day of school. As a teacher, I REALLY didn't look forward to the first day of school. And as a parent, I don't think I really ever have either. (Maybe I've just forgotten???) In the beginning of August, I was so sad that school was less than a month away. We have had such a great summer. The kids were playing great together! They were thriving on the lack of schedule! We were seeing friends! We were going swimming! We were being creative! We were using our imaginations! We were playing outside and in! We were going on field trips! I could see why people would homeschool! (Seriously, this thought actually entered my mind. Our summer was that good. I must have been smoking some major summer crack.)

And then mid-August came around. I don't know what happened. Nothing has changed. We are still seeing friends, going swimming, using our imaginations, etc. etc. But there is a mini revolt going on in our house right now. Attitudes are changing. Noise levels are changing. Tempers are changing. "It's not fairs!" and "She did it on purposes!" have increased tenfold. I don't know the scientific term for what's going on, but I think it can only be described as we are getting sick of each other. There is a reason for school. There is a reason summer is only so long. (Incidentally, it is the same reason why babies are so cute and have that whole baby smell thing going on.) Otherwise, someone would have to die. I'm not saying who. I'm just saying that families would kill each other when they have too much togetherness. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and they genuinely love one another. But they're bored of each other. They're bored of me. It's time to go back to school. I know I will miss them while they are there. I know I will have a HUGE adjustment to Annalise being gone ALL DAY!! But I know it's best for them and it's best for me. School starts in a week and a half. I'm ready. Let's go buy some school supplies.

Beach Day, With a Little Help from the Village

It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to support a mom through a tough time or to help her take three small children to the beach! Some days I feel a little guilty because I have my mom so close by. She is able to help me often. Today she came along with me so I could run some errands. It was so much faster to go to the vacuum repair shop, the post office and the dry cleaner without having to haul three kids out of the car. Plus, I had someone to talk to who didn't want to run down plot lines of various movies or books with me. (Today it was ET and Grandma got to enjoy that while I ran in to do my errands.) Sometimes I feel like I wouldn't be able to do it without her and wonder how she did it without the help of her family. I have resolved to stop feeling guilty about it, however, accept her help, and also accept that she and my children are also benefitting from the arrangement. I would have loved to have had my grandparents less than a mile away. How lucky my kids are that they get to have her so close.

Another person I am lucky to have in my life is my Aunt Nancy. Nancy is one of my mom's younger sisters, and also my godmother. She has always been special and important to me throughout my life. But in the past several years, she has become even more important. Five years ago, we moved my grandfather to an assisted living facility. Four and a half years ago, we moved him to a nursing home. A few months ago, my beloved grandpa finally past away. But in the meantime, we have had quite an adventure. Mostly my mom and Nancy were in charge of Grandpa's affairs, visiting him, etc. Their other two siblings live far away and weren't involved as much, so I became the number three guy. The kids and I went ususally at least once a week to visit him. And when my mom was out of town, Nancy and I would have the daily talk about Grandpa's status. And for a while, Nancy would stay at our house when she went to see Gramps. (She lives two hours away, and works one hour away.) The whole situation brought the two sisters closer together, but I felt closer to them both as well.

While I was pregnant with Juliette, I had some real ups and downs. It was a tough year for all sorts of reasons that I won't really go into here. Let's just say that some people in my life were not being very supportive. It caused me a lot of stress and worry. And then one day when I was twenty some odd weeks pregnant, with both Jason and my parents out of town, I fell. It wasn't a real bad fall, though my butt would probably disagree, but it did cause some spotting. I was upset and alone and didn't really know what to do. And out of nowhere, Aunt Nancy called. I told her what was going on. She said she was a little worried, she was about to go into a meeting and to call her back in an hour. I sat down at my kitchen table to tutor, and an hour later I looked up, and there was Nancy. She had dropped everything to come and take care of me. Jason was able to get on an earlier flight, and he was able to take care of the kids so that Nancy could take me to Labor and Delivery. Obviously everything was fine, but it was a scary situation. But in that moment of looking up and seeing her car out in front of my house, I instantly was transformed. Since then I have been able to mostly let go of the other not so good situation and realize how much I am loved. Now I realize that I have so many people who love me, who love my family, who support our decisions and who genuinely want to love and take care of our children. How blessed I am! I had been so busy dwelling on the negative, I couldn't see the love that had been right in front of me all along.

So last Wednesday, my mom and I decided that we had to get to the beach. (Yes, I said HAD. It's a real need. I swear.) We met Nancy and her best friend Dee Dee down at Dana Point. We went to a perfect little mothers' beach, with lots of soft sand and no waves. The kids had a blast swimming in the water, splashing, playing "lifeguard" and digging. Between the four of us, we were easily able to handle the three kids, taking turns sitting in the water, holding the baby and handing out sandwiches. It was perfect. I wouldn't have been able to take the kids by myself , but even if I could have, I wouldn't have wanted to. I had my two favorite "moms" with me and I feel thankful for it and not at all guilty.

So good! So good! So good!

Summer Sundays in La Canada mean music in the park. It's one of my favorite things about living in a small town. Half the town turns out, brings a picnic dinner. The kids run around and dance, do cartwheels and play on the playground. There are tons of dogs, but hardly any barking. It's really quite lovely. Last night featured "Hot August Nights," a Neil Diamond tribute band. We arrived before the band even started and already the park was packed. (Apparently "Neil" brought in the biggest crowd of the summer.) Neil's biggest fan was upfront dancing her little heart out in gray sweats from the first chord. At a certain point, a huge crowd formed in front of the stage (read gazebo). It was a mosh pit La Canada style: Neil Diamond music, a glass of wine in one hand, a child on the other hip and, as my friend Debbie added, a Coach bag back on the blanket. But, as the Evans family joined in for "Sweet Caroline," we had, "the most fun EVER!" as Annalise exclaimed. We even had our own little circle going with Debbie's family for screaming, "So good! So good! So good!" It was a lot of fist-pumping, hip-shaking good times. We may have shot Juliette's hearing, but wow did that kid have fun! It was a great reminder that life really is "So good!"