Debt-Free Disney

I am not a Pinterest mom.  I am not a soccer mom.  And I am not a PTA mom.  I have never cut my kids’ sandwiches into little teddy bears, or made caterpillars out of grapes, or recreated an impressionist’s painting with their broccoli, mashed potatoes, and grilled chicken.  I often use sarcasm and Bugs Bunny like dialogue when speaking to my kids, and they understand it.  I am sometimes quick to anger.  Our house often looks like a scene out of the movie Animal House instead of Martha Stewart Living or a Pottery Barn catalog. I feed them highly-processed, near fluorescent, mac & cheese alongside their antibiotic free pork chops, because they like it and because it is cheap and easy.  I use harsh chemicals to remove the stains from their clothes and virtually every other surface in our home because it works.  I let them watch TV because I watch TV.  I let them stay up late and sleep late every weekend because I stay up late and sleep late every weekend.  All four of them have hand-held electronic devices that they could spend hours on, and if homework is done and they’re not on restriction, I let them. 

It works for us.  I should be okay with that.  Instead, I find myself constantly feeling inadequate.  But I finally did something that all parents (whether they admit it or not) aspire to – I took my kids to Disneyworld. 

 

 

 

My husband and I were blessed to receive a week in a condo in Kissimmee, FL from my parents for Christmas (my mom told me at the end of October), we booked it for the week of Spring break, and I set off to plan the most magical vacation ever. 

I started on the Disney website – with its bright colors and cheerful music and bibbity-bobbity-booing all over the place.  I found the tickets, went to add 7-day “Park-Hopper” tickets to my cart for 2 adults and 4 kids, and was prompted to enter their ages.  My cart showed 4 adults and 2 kids and the total was 3-months-worth of mortgage payments, a week’s worth of groceries, and the blood of a virgin.  I was certain that there had to be a mistake.  I didn’t want accommodations, I didn’t have a dining plan or a personal guided tour from Mickey Mouse – we were only buying tickets.  They were calling my 11-year old an “adult.”  So I did a little research and discovered, sadly, that there was no mistake and that children 9 years old and older are considered adults by Disney.  I mean, I guess I sort of get it; the average 9-year old is tall enough to ride everything in the park, so they should pay full-price, but holy crap.  My 11-year old daughter is tiny!  I will admit that the idea of fibbing about her age crossed my mind, but I didn’t.  I did, however, call the reservations people to try and use my awesome negotiating skills to try for a better deal.  I had worked in corporate sales for years before I had kids, and I have successfully gotten a stubborn group of 4 kids to eat their vegetables, brush their teeth, and take a bath almost every night, Disney reservations should be putty in my hands. 

Here’s the thing:  Disney has more people wanting to give them money than they can allow in the parks at one time, so they don’t negotiate.  They don’t have to.  They will, however, help you find the best deal.  I learned that I could get the 7-day tickets that I wanted, a Memory-Maker package, AND add a single night at a Disney Value resort with a dining plan to get Magic Bands for all 6 of us for only about $50 more than I was going to pay for just tickets.  So that’s what I did.  They even let us pay for it over time (which felt a lot like debt, so I freaked out about 6 weeks later and paid the whole thing off rather than following the original plan).  I was so excited to tell the kids about it Christmas morning. 

Of course, the snoopy little 9-year old found out early, but she kept her mouth shut. 

About 2 months before we were scheduled to leave, I had a freak-out moment about the cost.  I called Disney to see how much we could save if we dropped a day or 2 at the parks.  Maybe we should just get  5 or 6-day tickets instead of  7-day tickets – if I averaged things out, it should save us about $500 or so.  Nope.  Because this is where the genius of Disney comes into play.  Every day of tickets that you buy, the price drops considerably.  So I asked about dropping one day and discovered that we’d only save $6 a ticket, or $36 total.  Drop 2-days? We’d save less than $100.  See, Orlando is chock-full of family-friendly attractions like Lego land, Universal Studios, and Sea World (if your family is into animal torture).  Disney does not want you go and spend any money at any other park – they want all of your money – so, they make it very expensive for you to leave their park and go somewhere else during your average 7-day stay. 

My kids’ current obsession with Harry Potter meant that I had to look into Universal Studios for their Harry Potter world.  I discovered that there are actually 2 Universal Parks and that they have Harry Potter World in one and Marvel Universe in the other.  Obviously, we’d need to go to both.  A 2-day Park-Hopper ticket for the 6 of us would be about $1,800, but going from a 7-day ticket to a 5-day ticket at Disney would only save us about $100.  I was too cheap to pull the trigger and decided that this would be a Disney-ONLY trip.  When we told the kids, they were completely over the moon excited. 

Let me tell you – doing Disney “debt-free” IS possible, but it is NOT easy.  Our family gave the kids Disney gift cards that they could spend in the parks for Christmas.  I was in total save mode.  Whenever I was at the grocery store and went under budget, I would grab a Disney gift card or 2.  I had a jar on my counter that said “Disney Dough” on one side and “Mickey Money” on the other, and I would drop random change and small bills into whenever I had them.  I was determined not to dip into savings to pay for this trip, and we do not do credit. 

I am happy to say that we had an AMAZING time at Disney.  Yes, it was insanely expensive, and overly crowded, and there are “stories” that I will tell in subsequent posts (seriously – people provided a wealth of post material), but it was a great experience for our family.  Disney has a way of doing EVERYTHING right so that the pain of spending all of that money feels worth it, and you want to come back and give them more money.  And I do want to go back.  As soon and as often as possible.

Hefty Accomplishments

I have been actively avoiding responsibility this week.  I was sick all weekend and although I am finally starting to feel some better, I just don’t want to do anything.  I did stuff last week.  It made me sick. (I know that it didn’t actually make me sick, but just go with it.)  Last week was all about cleaning out clutter.  I got rid of unmatched and warped Tupperware, bagged up some old clothes for donation, and set aside some items to sell (someday).  I even convinced the kids to get rid of some of the plethora of toys that they move around their rooms while looking for the toys that they actually play with.  But the biggest cleanup happened in my eight year old daughter’s room. 

I used to imagine that my kids’ rooms would look like a cross between my own childhood room and a Pottery Barn catalog.  When they were babies, keeping their stuff neatly arranged was easy – they couldn’t actually play with any of it and it stayed wherever I put it.  When they were toddlers, I just gave them a few toys at a time to play with and kept the rest out of reach.  But as they got older, they gained access to all of their stuff all of the time and my catalog dreams were shredded along with most of the paper in my house and it all ended up on the floors of their rooms.

 

 

My daughter loves her stuff.  I mean, she REALLY loves it.  She never wants to get rid of anything.  Ever.  Her favorite things are her stuffed animals.  She had probably close to 150 stuffed cats, dogs, birds, unicorns, hedgehogs, foxes, wolves, horses, etc.  Name an animal – real or imaginary – she probably had at least one of them on her bed.  She has been found asleep on her floor some nights because she has carefully arranged and tucked in 50-60 stuffed animals into her bed and there is no room for her.  When I informed her that she needed to par it down, I could see the panic in her face.  I suggested that she arrange them in a line, starting with her most favorite, going to her least favorite, and that we could start by giving her least favorites to some kids who don’t have any stuffed animals.  She liked that idea, but an hour later, I found her in her room hugging an armful of animals, and she said “I can’t.  They’re all my favorite.”  Sigh.

I was beginning to think that I would one day I’d walk into her room to discover that she had disappeared under an avalanche of poly-fill stuffing and faux fur. 

 

I know what you are thinking: “Well, why would you keep buying them for her if it is such a problem?”  But see, *I* don’t buy them for her.  Grandma does.  Her friends do.  Her siblings do.  Every birthday, Christmas, weekend outing, etc., she gets a new stuffed animal.  She names them all.  They have distinctive personalities with likes and dislikes.  This one prefers the shelf to the bed, that one likes to be near the window, the one on the floor is feigning sleep because he doesn’t want to play with the two under the dresser – there are entire sagas played out in her mind about these animals.  I love and admire her creativity and imagination and I didn’t want to squelch it in any way.  She wants more than anything to have a REAL animal of her very own.  Sure, we have a dog (who she loves), but she wants her OWN animal. 

 

As most parents will tell you, you can send your kids to “clean” their rooms all day long, but if you really want it cleaned you need to go in there with them.  So last week, I went into my daughter’s horribly cluttered room with her, and helped her clean out things so that she could manage it better.  We went through her clothes and got rid of anything that was too small, torn, or stained.  We tried on all of her shoes and eliminated the ones that were snug.  And we tackled the stuffed animals.  We had already taken 4 trash bags full of clothes and shoes out of her room, and so I used that momentum to tackle the zoo that she had collected.  We went at them with the understanding that we were going to be sending at least half of them to new homes and we used the “no touch” method.  I would pick up an animal, hold it for her to see, she would say “Keep” or “Give away” and I would either put it into her toy bin or into a garbage bag.  She didn’t have to touch them at all.  She did great.  Better than great, actually, because she got rid of 3 trash bags full of stuffed animals. 

After we had accomplished the cleanout of things to sell or give away, we had to tackle the trash that was in her room, and how an 8 year old child can have that much trash is beyond me.  There were a few broken things, and some stuff that was simply beyond donating, but the “art” was the main culprit.  You know, in college, I participated in “Earth Day” and I signed a petition urging my campus to consider electronic textbooks and computer based testing to cut down on the use of paper because it killed trees.  Little did I know that one day my child would have enough paper in her room to handwrite the complete works of Shakespeare on in print large enough to be read from across the room.  There must have been 3-4 reams of paper with just a mark or two on them, all wadded up and torn.  They were in stacks on her shelves, in her closet, in her dresser, behind her dresser, and under her bed.  And we had to look at all of them because she was afraid that she might accidentally throw away her masterpiece.  I wanted badly to tell her that she wasn’t Da Vinci, but I didn’t.  We went through all 12,000 sheets of paper and kept less than 50.  We hung a few up and neatly stored the rest in her desk. 

Once the dead forest was removed, I saw something odd under her bed.  I started pulling in out and was bewildered.  She had 10-12 collapsed cardboard boxes stacked up under her bed.  There were one or two big boxes, but there were also a lot of broken down shoe boxes.  Underneath the stack were wads of poly-fill and some fabric pieces.  It looked like a rats nest.  I asked her what it was all for, and she told me that she was saving it to build a house for the cat that she was going to get someday.  All I could picture was that my daughter was going to be a hoarder and that she was going to have a cardboard shanty town for cats in her living room where normal people would have a piano.  I convinced her that the cat that she might someday have would not need a cardboard house and we added the cardboard to the recycling bin.

All told, we hauled out 5 trash bags of trash (not counting the recyclable cardboard).  You would think that her room would now be a sparse and barren place after a total of 12 bags of “stuff” was taken away, but it isn’t.  However, now she can find her stuff and she can manage it herself.  I was very proud of her and the way that she tackled this with me. 

Unfortunately for me, I have 3 more kids with hoarding potential and rooms of their very own.  I need to recover before I can tackle their rooms.  And I need to buy more trash bags.

 

Welcome To The Club

I have been neglecting my blog.  My last post, like all of my political or religious posts, cost me a few followers.  I gained new ones in the exchange, but I try real hard not to purposely offend people so it always bugs me when I get a few responses of "I had no idea you were a conservative, so I can't follow you anymore." I had one reader who sent me an email with just 2 words: "Bigot.  Unfollowing."  Part of me wants to write these people back and try to open a dialogue, but the cynic in me says what's the point?  The cynic in me almost always wins.  Truth is, the stuff that has been going on with our nation's government has been on my mind.  A lot.  So it has been hard to write about much of anything without those concerns somehow creeping in. As you may or may not remember, I have been attempting to write a novel.  I had to delete about 6,000 words last week because I got off on a tangent that reeked of my political views.  So, if THIS post gets a little political, (although it would be pretty hard considering what it is about), I apologize.


Almost 2 weeks ago, my family joined a club.  The "We Had Lice" club.  We were recruited, unwillingly, by some other club members at my kids' school. We have received "Lice Letters" from the school 5 different times since school started at the end of August, and we got a new one the Monday of that week.  As always, I took an hour or so to thoroughly check all 4 heads the night the letter came home, and found nothing.  That Saturday, we were getting pictures made and I wanted to straighten the girls' hair, so I was blow drying the oldest when I saw something.  I wasn't sure I had seen it...I wanted to believe that I hadn't seen it...I tried to dismiss it....but there it was.  A bug.  In my kid's hair.  It looked like an alien.  As I picked through her hair, repeating "No, no, no" over and over again under my breath and then screaming for my husband to come and provide back-up, I saw a teeny-tiny white thing on the hair shaft, near her scalp, and I was convinced that it was an egg.  My kid had lice.  My husband wasn't convinced.  He didn't see anything.  He said "I really think that you are 'nit-picking.' I don't see anything."  I stared blankly at him for a moment and replied "Do you know where that phrase 'nit-picking' comes from?!"  I explained that we had received another lice letter earlier that week.  I called the other kids into the bathroom and began meticulously looking through their heads.  My OCD kicked in.  My mind was racing.  "Is that an egg?" "Is that?!" "What about THAT??!!"  I was a little frantic...

Luckily, (for me at least), one of my dearest friends had just been through this with her own kids.  I, on her behalf, had called another of my best friends who is a hair dresser and had asked her what she needed to do.  My hairdresser friend used to go to people's houses to delouse their kids (at a hefty price) and I knew that she was an expert.  After a few frantic moments of just straight up freaking out, I took a deep breath and began organizing in my head what needed to be done.

First things first: I called the photographer and let her know what I had discovered.  She said the pictures are outside.  You are my last appointment.  I am booked until April.  In short, don't cancel.  So I didn't.  (And the pictures turned out great).  Then I called my kids' friends' parents to let them know what was up so that they could be on the look out on their own kids. (I would call the school on Monday.)  Finally, I called our pediatrician's office to let them know and to verify my plan of attack, which was unconventional (and which I will explain in a second).  Here is what the doctor told me when she called me back:

1)  She does not recommend the over the counter treatments.  Nix and Rid are EXTREMELY harsh.  I would have to wear gloves to apply it to my kids' heads and then wash their hair in the sink to prevent the chemicals from touching any other part of their bodies.  It would most likely dry their hair and scalp out to the point that they will scratch uncontrollably -- possibly until they drew blood, thereby making further application impossible until the wounds heal.  

2)  Nix and Rid are often INEFFECTIVE.  That's right, lice in North America are developing resistance to these treatments.  Even before resistance began to occur, these products NEVER killed the eggs -- nothing but heat or cold will kill the eggs.  That is why these products come with a "Nit Comb."  Regardless of what treatment you use, you HAVE TO pick the eggs out manually.  It takes forever, they are sticky and hard to see, but if you do not remove every last egg, you will not get rid of the lice.

3)  The level of infestation that I described to her indicated that they had gotten it in the last 2-3 days.  She said that one of the worst times of year was NOW and one of the easiest places to get them was the bus.  (My kids are no longer bus riders).  

4)  Done correctly, the method that I planned would work perfectly well and I would need to continue to check them daily for the next few weeks to prevent them from re-infesting.  

So as soon as we got home, I got to work.  I am going to outline here exactly what I did in case you ever find your own family recruited into this club.  Here is what you will need to do unless you think that everyone in your family would look good with a buzz-cut:

1) Gather all of the bed linens, blankets, stuffed animals, etc.  You have 3 choices of how to treat these -- dry in a hot dryer for NO LESS THAN 30 minutes (sustained heat for 5-7 minutes should be sufficient, but it takes a bit to get consistent heat through everything in the dryer, freeze in a deep freezer for at least 10 hours, or seal them up in plastic garbage bags (use duct tape to seal the tops) for 1 week.  Lice cannot live off of a human host for more than 36 hours, but hey, you can eliminate the clutter for a whole week!  We sealed up the majority of the stuffed animals and washed all of the linens in hot water and dried them in a hot dryer and we dried the pillows for 30 minutes.  Any recently worn clothes, hats, jackets, sweaters, and coats too.  Because we know that our kids got this at school, I did the same with their backpacks.  You think you have a lot of laundry now, wait until you get lice.  

2)  Brush every tangle, knot and rat's nest out of your kids' hair and your own and then gather every brush and comb that you own.  Even if you think the infected kid hasn't touched them, treat them anyway.  Clean all the loose hair out, stop up the sink and put them in.   Put some water on to boil and once it boils, turn it off and wait for it to stop boiling.  Now pour the extremely hot water over the brushes and combs until covered, add a little shampoo, and let them soak until the water cools enough to put your hands in it. Hand wash them all, rinse them well, and let them air dry.

3) Vacuum everything.  We vacuumed carpets, drapes, mattresses, pillows -- all of it.  Because we had been out, we also vacuumed the car and wiped down the interior just to be safe.  Then empty the vacuum into a plastic bag, seal it up, and put it in the outside trash can. (Again, this is hyper-vigilance since lice cannot survive off of a human host very long).

4)  Go buy 4 things -- a large bottle of cheap olive oil, tea tree oil, disposable shower caps, and a nit comb.  We got a gallon of olive oil from Target for $20 and a small bottle of pure tea tree oil for about $5.  The shower caps and nit comb came from a beauty supply store and cost about $10.  (Nix and Rid are $20 a box and require 2 boxes per head -- in my family, that route would have cost us at least $240 plus tax.  This method let me treat my entire family for around $40 and we have enough olive oil left over to do it at least 2 more times.)

5)   Cancel all of your plans for at least the next 48 hours.  You are not going anywhere.  You are about to embark on a nit-picking adventure and you have a ton of laundry to do.

6)  Take the tea tree oil and add 3-5 drops per ounce to everyone's shampoo and conditioner.  This will not "prevent" re-infestation, but it will discourage it.  I also mixed 5 drops per ounce of water in a spray bottle and I spray the kids backpacks and jackets every day before they go to school, as well as using the tea tree water to spray in their hair as I fix it every morning.  (I also throw their backpacks and jackets into the dryer for 30 minutes when they get home every day.)

7)  You are going to take the olive oil and SATURATE the tangle free hair.  Be certain that you rub it into the scalp as well (the scalp is key since this is where they live and feed).  I also combed it through with a wide tooth comb and then a fine tooth comb just to be sure that every strand was covered.  If you see any eggs, go ahead and pull them out.  You will be pulling them out anyway when this first phase is done, so if you see any now you might as well get a jump on it.  Once the hair AND SCALP are completely covered, put the shower cap on and wait no less than 2 hours (lice can hold their breath for up to 2 hours, so make sure that you pass that mark). Treat EVERYONE in the house -- even if you do not think that they have any lice because you want to be absolutely certain that you eradicate them all. Start with the youngest kid.  It will make your life infinitely easier, trust me.  We put on Netflix for the kids to keep them distracted because this is not a pleasant experience -- it is hot and as the oil warms up it runs and that tickles.  Of course, I spent this 2 hours running the washer and dryer and researching lice on the internet...more on that later).

8) After the 2 hours is up, the fun part starts (not really).  Now you have to go through the hair, practically strand by strand.  You are looking for eggs.  The viable eggs (those that could hatch out brand new lice in the next 7 days or so) will be within 1/4 inch of the scalp. They are darn near impossible to see, especially if your kids have light colored hair, but you can feel them.  They feel like little grains of sugar or sand.  If you touch what you think is an egg and it falls, then it is not an egg.  Eggs are cemented to the hair shaft and have to be slid out. The olive oil will make them a lot easier to remove. You can use the nit comb on shorter hair and to help you separate a section of longer hair to go through, but on longer hair, do not trust the nit comb to get the eggs out.  You will have to use your thumb nail and then wipe them off onto a tissue or paper towel.  In my experience, at best the nit comb slid the eggs down the hair shaft but it did not remove them.  (Just for a little indication of what you are in for, my oldest daughter's hair took me nearly 4 hours to go through -- her hair is almost to her waist and very thick).  

9)  Now that you have done all of that, wash the hair in water that is as hot as you can stand without it being painful.  You will most likely have to wash it at least twice to remove all of the oil.  Apply conditioner, rinse, and blow it dry until it is completely dry (look through it while you are blow drying and remove any other eggs that you see).  

10)  Now do it again.  All of it.  The olive oil, the shower cap, the nit-picking, washing and blow drying.  If your kids are older, like mine, I put the oil in their hair, put the shower cap on, laid down a towel over their newly dried pillows and had them sleep in it.  I DO NOT recommend doing this on younger kids.  I did not do this on the 5 year old, just the older kids.  

11)  Check them again.  Every. Single. Day.  I go through my kids' hair thoroughly when their hair is wet because it is easier, but I look all the time.  I use a flashlight to make it easier on my eyes.

12)  Repeat the oil treatment 2 more times in one week intervals. (It made my kids' hair look amazing, so we will probably do this every week for awhile).  Newly hatched lice nymphs are translucent.  It takes 7 days for them to develop into egg-laying adults.  So if, by chance, an egg was missed and hatched, in 2 treatments you could eliminate them before more eggs were laid.

13)  Blow dry the hair every single time you wash it.  The heat will kill any lice or eggs that you may have missed (although much more effective on the eggs than the lice since the hatched lice can run away).  Just 105 degrees of sustained heat for a minimum of 5-7 minutes on the head can kill them.  If you have the old fashioned dryer that you sit under, even better.

14) You may find eggs or egg casings farther away from the scalp -- we found 2-3 close to the ends of the girls' hair the second go-round.  Most likely, you dislodged these while you were nit-combing, but didn't get them all the way out of the hair.  They are no longer viable (according to the internet, my hairdresser, and my pediatrician), but remove them anyway.  I didn't want to take any chances.

15) Notify the school, your friends, your kids' friends' parents, anyone that you or your kids have been around since you believe that your kids were infested. 

 

Here is what I learned:  You do not have to use dangerous chemicals to get rid of these pests, but you do have to be thorough and persistent.  I go through my kids hair every day now.  They hate it, but I haven't found ANY lice or eggs and Saturday will be 2 weeks.  I did all of this on a Saturday and Sunday.  Sunday night, my hair dresser friend came over to "double-check" my work.  She declared them all clean.  She was so convinced that they were lice-free that she used her own brushes, combs, clippers, and scissors to cut their hair.  When they went back to school, the school nurse also checked them and declared them clean.  A second set of eyes REALLY helps -- you will feel like you are going cross-eyed after a couple of heads.

As annoying as all of this was, the REALLY annoying part came when I called the school on Monday.  I love our school nurse.  She is good at her job and having 4 kids in the school means that I know her pretty well.  BUT -- she is restricted by the bureaucracy and rules that the school has to comply with.  The school district does not send kids home or require them to stay home unless the school nurse has personally observed live bugs in their hair.  Head full of eggs?  Sure!  Come on to class!  And she isn't allowed to check heads without parental permission unless the teacher has reason to believe that the kid may have lice.  Even if a kid in the class has lice, she can't check the rest of the class without permission from the parents.  And those lice letters?  They do not go out per grade -- they go out per CLASS.  Each grade has 6+ classes and they are not restricted to interacting with just their class (or even just their grade).  Lice usually die within 18 hours of being removed from their host, but can live off of a human head for up to 36 hours (according to my doctor, my hairdresser, the internet, and every other source that I could find).  They cannot jump or fly, but they crawl extremely fast.  Direct contact with an infected head or surface is required to share this pest, but in an elementary school, that happens a lot more than you might think.  3rd and 4th grade students are "reading buddies" with kindergarten students, 5th and 6th graders do the same with 1st graders as well as volunteer all over the school -- during PE, in the library, in the lunchroom, etc.  But when a kid in Ms. Smith's 6th grade class gets lice (if the parents even tell the school, because there is no rule requiring them to do so), the "Lice Letter" only goes out to Ms. Smith's class.  Not the whole 6th grade, and not the whole school as it should.  Our school nurse said that the reason was to save the kids any embarrassment.  When I asked why they allowed kids with nits to come to school, she said because the powers that be determined that kids were missing too much school as a result of the "no nit" policy, so they changed it.  Through talking with her, I could tell that she was not happy about it, but her hands were tied.  Learning all of this made me determined to ensure that my kids were not re-infested (hence, the dryer and the tea tree oil and the daily checks).

As for my chosen method, if you research on the internet and go to Web MD and The CDC site, you will find that it states that the olive oil method has been "disproved."  When I asked my pediatrician about that she said that no actual study had been done and that the reason that they say that is because people do not do it right.  They put oil on the hair for a half hour or so, don't use a shower cap, don't nit-pick, don't blow dry, etc. and when they still have lice, they claim the method doesn't work.  Both my pediatrician and my hairdresser said that the process only works if you are thorough and follow all of the steps.  I am here to tell you that it DOES work.  I got rid of lice in my house in less than 2 days.  My friend who went through this before me, started with the chemical route.  She did not try the oil until she had been battling them for nearly 2 weeks.  As soon as she did the oil, BOOM, no more lice.

There are a lot of myths about lice that just aren't true, so I am going to close with a few things I learned from my research.  I research all the time -- it is part of my freelance work -- and I go way beyond page one Google results.  Here are some of the things that I learned:

1) Lice prefer CLEAN hair.  Having lice does not mean that you are dirty.

2)  Nits take 5-7 days to hatch, 5-7 days to become adults capable of laying eggs, and the adults can live up to 25 days.  This life cycle is based upon the bugs being left alone, of course. There have been reports of eggs hatching after 9 days and adults living as long as 30 days, but from the egg to death is no more than 5 weeks according to nearly every single site I visited on the internet.  My doctor told me that if I missed an egg, it would hatch within the week, and treating with the oil in one week would kill the nymphs before they had a chance to reach adulthood.  The treatment 2 weeks out is considered optional by most everyone (except me.  I hate bugs.)

3) Only female lice can lay eggs, but once they have been fertilized just once, they can lay up to 100 eggs in their lifespan. Yep, fertilized.  Lice reproduce sexually.  So if you have eggs, chances are there have been bugs having sex on your head.  (Females only have to mate once to be fertilized.  Then they can lay eggs until they die.)

4)  The eggs are laid close to the scalp because newly hatched nymphs must have their first blood meal within seconds of hatching.  Eggs farther than 2 inches from the scalp are not considered viable because the newly hatched nymph would be too weak to crawl that far to reach the scalp to feed.   

5)   Lice do not transmit any disease, they do not burrow into the skin, and they cannot jump, hop, or fly.  Although possible, it is unlikely that a louse would survive off of it's host long enough to be transmitted via hats, carpets, or jackets.  Infestation generally occurs through head to head or hair to hair contact.

6)  Head lice CANNOT live on household pets -- they only live on humans.

7)  Scratching does not mean lice.  In fact, many kids with lice exhibit NO SYMPTOMS at all.  Mine didn't.  Had I not been blow drying my daughter's hair, my family could have been completely infested before I ever knew.  

8)  There are prescription treatments available for full-blown lice infestations that there has not been any evidence of resistance of, but they are still harsh.  

9)  Girls are 2-4 times more likely to get lice than boys, and kids ages 4-14 (where all 4 of mine fall) are the most commonly infected group.   

 10)  Braiding longer hair can help to prevent re-infestation.

11)  Lice will run from light, preferring to stay in the dark shadows of the hair.

12)  The blow drying will dehydrate the eggs, but live lice will simply run around on the head to avoid the hot air, so blow drying should be done in conjunction with other treatments.

13)  Lice prefer to congregate on the warmest, darkest areas of the head -- behind the ears and the nape of the neck.  However, that does not mean that is the only place that you will find them or their eggs.  I found most of the eggs on my kids on their crown.

14)   If you or your kid get lice, you have to take care of it at home.  Either yourself or hiring someone to come to you.  You cannot go to a salon with lice.  Professional nit-pickers charge up to $200 per hour.  

15)  Hair color, perm solutions, and other common chemical treatments will NOT kill lice.   

There is more, but these things seemed to be the most informative and dispel the most myths out there about lice.  I opted not to include pictures because, well, ewww.  Lice are gross.  They look like alien creatures.  I figure if you want to see one you can Google it.  As for now, me and my kids are lice free and regardless of school bureaucracy, we will stay that way, because I don't do bugs.  Period.

 

A Rough Morning

It has been a rough morning here at Casa Caballero.  I woke up late (again) and that always means a lot of yelling and rushing which is bad enough in and of itself.  My kids do not seem to understand that "we're running late" means move faster, and I get frustrated.  Even more frustrated than having to get up at all makes me.

This morning, the oldest was really pushing my buttons.  First he comes downstairs in just a t-shirt and jeans.  It is currently 28 degrees outside.  I told him that he will need to go and put on a long sleeved shirt, which causes him to slump his shoulders and roll his eyes at me.  I continue to prod everyone along, calling out "25 minutes until the bus is here!" then "20 minutes!" and "15 minutes!" and I find him sitting in the floor in front of the space heater in the den.  The same kid that I just made go and change into long sleeves, is trying to get warm and just sitting there.  I can feel my temper rising....

Then there is the problem of breakfast.  We have no less than 6 different kinds of cereal, Eggos, Pop-Tarts, breakfast bars, and bagels. However, my 11 year old claims that there is nothing to eat and wants to just have a fruit cup.  As I was explaining to him that a fruit cup is not breakfast, and he is arguing that he'll just eat an orange, I hear the trash truck.  Great.  I missed it.  So now, with 10 minutes to go until they need to walk out the door, he is grumbling into his Cheerios and I am still providing the countdown as I try to get a brush through the 6 year old's hair and the 9 year old is rushing around looking for her library book.

Finally, I yell into the kitchen where he is sipping the milk out of his bowl like he is at a garden tea party without a care in the world that he has 4 minutes to get his teeth brushed, get his jacket & backpack and get out the door.  He gets up and slams his bowl into the sink, splashing milk everywhere and stomps upstairs to brush his teeth.  I am zipping the 6 year old into her jacket and yelling up the stairs to him that he is out of time and he comes slumping down the stairs at a pace that is just above standing still. 

He won't look at me.

The girls both give me hugs and kisses and head out the door towards the corner where the bus picks them up, and I say to the 11 year old "Hey, what is wrong with you this morning?"

He still won't look at me, but I can see his eyes turning red and welling up just a little bit and he says to the wall "Apparently I can't do anything right because I was trying to do what you said and you just kept yelling at me."

Dagger to my heart.  There is no time to address this because the bus is a block away, but I tell him that I love him and that we will talk about it when he gets home.

Sometimes, it is hard for me to remember that he is just 11.  He has been the oldest, my helper, the responsible one, for so long that I expect more of him.  But he is just a kid.  And he is a sensitive kid.  And I can be insensitive without meaning things the way that he takes them.

Yes, I was yelling all morning, but I was not intentionally yelling AT him.  At least not ONLY at him.  I was yelling because it is my nature to freak out and yell to get things done faster.  I yell out the time they have left to make them all move faster, I yell because they are in three different places in the house and I need them all to hear me, and I yell because I am, in general, a loud person. 

He isn't.  He is quiet, for the most part, like his dad.  And his dad often tells me to "quit yelling at him" when I don't realize that I am.   I am also sarcastic with my kids, and usually they love it and laugh, but running late at 6:30 am may not be the best time for me to look at my kid and say something like "Seriously?  A t-shirt?  It is 28 degrees outside and you are wearing a t-shirt? Go put on something with long sleeves." and then follow that with a shout out about how much time they have and that they need to hurry up. 

I will tell him all of this when he gets home.  I will try to explain that I was not mad, just frustrated.  I will point out how he contributed to that frustration, and I will apologize for my reactions to...well, to everything this morning because it was not his fault.  It was not his fault that "we" woke up late.  It was mine.  It was not his fault that the trash didn't get to the curb.  It was mine.  It was not his fault that I was yelling.  It was mine.

Hopefully, he will understand and he will forgive me. 

Probably, he will be over it by this afternoon and not want to talk about it because a heart-to-heart with your mom when you are an 11 year old boy is not something that you look forward to.

But it is definitely going to happen because even if he is over it by this afternoon, I won't be.  I need him to know that I love him and that I am sorry.  I want him to know that he is a good kid and that I am proud of him.  I can't just assume that he knows. 

It's Never Over

So it's Friday night, and I wanted to write a blog because I have been writing freelance stuff all week.  I started this afternoon.  I stared at the flashing cursor thingy (which was totally mocking me, by the way), and I thought "What is wrong with you?  You have written over 14,500 words this week on traumatic brain injury, premise liability, boating safety, and other legal issues.  That was new.  This is YOU.  THIS is your thing!  Write!" 

And still I had nothing.

Sure, I started a few things.  I would write a few words, or a couple of sentences -- I even managed a whole paragraph once -- but I always "backspaced" them away because, well, they sucked.  I was really getting discouraged.  I thought I had lost my blogging mojo. 

I went back and looked at some of my most popular posts and I realized that it wasn't me.  It was my kids.  They were growing up and they weren't doing the same stupid stuff that they used to do.  They weren't shredding the mattress cover or cutting each other's hair or coloring the walls.  My kids are acting more normal and depriving me of great blog material.  No wonder I had nothing. 

Then, as if on cue, the 9 year old proved me wrong.

She was having a friend to spend the night.  We were going to order pizza and watch movies by the fire.  I sent her 2 brothers over to my mom's to hang out until bedtime so they could have girl time (her little sister stayed).  I gave them a snack and I started to watch "Revenge" from last Sunday on the DVR, telling them that we'd order pizza in a half an hour or so.  They went upstairs and I heard giggling and laughing and all was well.

Or so I thought.

Skipping the commercials, it took me 40 minutes to finish my show.  I started upstairs to ask what kind of pizza they wanted, and was met on the stairs by my 9 year old. 

"Mom, I have to tell you something."
"What?"
"We were pranking [her big brother] and....and...."(dissolves into tears).
"And what?"
"And I told her not to but she did it anyway."  (More tears)
"Okay.  Hold on.  Take a breath.  Start over."

This is the tale I was told:  My daughter and her friend wanted to "prank" her brother while he was gone.  It started fairly benign with molding clay on his light switch.  Then they decided to spray perfume all over his room.  Again, although incredibly smelly, also fairly benign and easily fixed.  If they had stopped here, we would have had a little scolding, and gone on with our evening of pizza and painted nails and Disney movies. 

But they didn't stop there.

They took his hair gel and squirted under his comforter and all over his sheets.  Sheets I had just washed.  Now it was getting annoying.  I was going to have to rewash his sheets and his comforter and I was going to have to figure out how to make his room smell like a boy again.

Then she told me that her friend had the idea to paint on his wall with glitter nail polish.  (I don't know why, we were not to the whys at this point, we were stuck on the "what-else-did-you-do").  So the friend got the glitter nail polish, even though my daughter told her not to do it.  She didn't come get me.  She took it into her brother's room and painted on the wall.  She still didn't come get me.  She didn't want to get her friend in trouble. 

So instead, she decided to try to fix it.

(SPOILER ALERT: She made it worse.)

My daughter is very artistic.  She received lots of art supplies for Christmas.  So she went into her room and got her acrylic paints and took them to her brother's room to try to paint over what her friend had done with the nail polish.  Now, to her credit, she expertly mixed about 6 different colors and matched her brother's wall color almost perfectly.  Not that it mattered, since her brother's room is painted with a satin finish, and she was using acrylics.  What did matter, was that in the process of all of this mixing, she got paint all over the carpet. 

THIS is when she decided it was time for her tearful confession. 

I turned to the little girl (whom I happen to like very much) and asked her if this was true and she said yes.

I made my daughter show me the damage.  I got some cleaning supplies and did what I could and I called her mom, my friend.  I relayed what had happened and we both agreed that they should come and get their daughter.  I told her (and her daughter) that I really liked her and was glad that she and my daughter were friends, but they had made a mistake tonight.  I also told her that I really hoped that she could come back another time, but that tonight they had abused the privilege of having a sleepover. 

Now don't get me wrong, I applaud my daughter for coming to me, even though it was a little late.  I let her know through the long discussions that we had tonight that I was proud of the fact that she told me but that I wish she had come to me sooner.  I let her know that there would be consequences beyond the end of the sleepover, and I talked to her about how I understood not wanting to get her friend in trouble. 

I explained that in the grand scheme of life, this was a very small thing; but that I wanted her to remember 3 very important lessons from it that would serve her well throughout life as the bigger things came up:  1) I want her to remember that she made a mistake.  She knew it was a mistake, but instead of confessing, she tired to cover it up and in the end it was a much bigger mess than she or I could handle.  I told her that if she remembered that, she could save herself a lot of trouble in the future.  2) I wanted her to remember that sometimes telling on a friend will keep them out of trouble.  If she had come to me and said "My friend wants to paint the wall with nail polish even though I told her it was a bad idea."  I could have kept all of this from happening and no one would have gotten in trouble.  3)  I told her that I loved her no matter what she did.  I told her that I would get angry at her and at what she does sometimes, but I would always love her no matter what.  We talked a long time.  She was very upset because she knew that she was wrong and because the evening had not turned out like she had planned at all.   She apologized to me, and in the morning she will apologize to her big brother.

I was going to wrap this up with a clever remark, but I am being verbally assaulted on my Facebook page right now and I cannot focus on being witty or clever.  The bottom line is, I realized that my kids still have loads of potential for future blog posts.  They may not be about how they are domestic terrorists who destroy the furniture or how they lock me out of the house so that they can have a butter and cheese picnic, but this is a parenting humor blog (for the most part) and I am a parent forever.  I will always find the humor in what they do and there will always be lessons learned. 

As for the verbal assault on my page, well, that is just more blog fodder for another day.

Waiting For Change

Tuesday, I started writing a post about parental responsibility.  It is going to be a great post when I finish it, but as usually happens with me, life interrupted and now I have a different story to tell first.

Tuesday my youngest goes to preschool, and after I picked him up we came home and I got him a snack of yogurt and pretzels while I went all ADD on the house while making my lunch -- started unloading the dishwasher because I needed a plate for my sandwich, then stopped halfway through to get the clothes out of the dryer and put the wet clothes in from the washer, went to throw away the lint from the dryer and grabbed some chips from the pantry, went upstairs to get some more laundry and remembered I was still hungry, went back to the kitchen to make my sandwich only to start unloading the dishwasher again -- you get the idea.  My youngest was sitting at the table eating his snack as I was running around all crazy, when all of a sudden he started coughing and gagging.  I knew that he was "okay" because he was coughing, crying, and breathing, but I still went into mom-panic-mode and scooped him up and slapped his back, and made him drink all in an attempt to wash down the pretzel stuck in his throat.  He was scared and he said that it was still in his throat, I assumed that the pretzel had scratched his throat and just kept making him drink. 

I finally got him calmed down, and my sandwich abandoned, I was cuddling with him on the couch.  I asked him if he was okay as I stroked his hair and kissed his forehead and he looked at me and said:

"Swallowing that penny was scary."
 

Well of course I FREAKED OUT because I thought that he had been choking on a pretzel.   I probably could have gotten it out when he first started choking and gagging, but silly me, I wrongfully assumed that he was choking on the food that I gave him to eat and not some random object he'd found on the table.  I thought that at 4, we were past the point of putting money in our mouths. 

So I called the doctor, who sent us for X-rays to confirm that it was a penny, that it wasn't lodged anywhere, and to determine best course of action based on that information.  The penny was there, and thanks in large part to my pushing fluids after it first happened, it was in his stomach.  We were told to go home and wait and watch for it to pass.  Call if there was any pain or vomiting, or if there was no sign of the penny by Friday.  In case you've never had the pleasure of dealing with a swallowed foreign object, that meant that I got to catch and go through poop until I found a penny.  My life is so glamorous.

Tuesday -- No poop.
Wednesday -- No poop.
Thursday -- Still no poop, so I called the doctor who asked if this was "normal" for him (and I honestly don't know.  I mean, I haven't closely monitored his poop since he's been out of diapers).  In any case, they instructed us to give a laxative and extended the timeline to Saturday.

Finally, this morning, we had a little poop, but no penny.  Conversations with my little piggy bank revealed that swallowing the penny had hurt so much that he was now deathly afraid to poop because he thought it would hurt again.  We had tried in vane to dispel this fear, but the 4 year old was having none of it, until he finally pooped today.  Now he believes us that it isn't going to hurt, but still no penny.

So the downstairs toilet remains wrapped in Saran Wrap to catch the elusive penny and unavailable to everyone but him, and my box of latex gloves is on the counter.  And I will spend my day trying to catch up on housework and asking the 4 year old every 30 minutes or so if he needs to poop so that I can play with it until I find the penny. 

Sigh. 

Just waiting for change.

Explaining Death To My Kids Reminded Me About Life

Death is hard.  It is even harder when you have to explain it to your children and answer their questions about it. 

This past week, my great aunt passed away.  Now, I don't know if it's a Southern thing, but I have found that many people seem to be surprised that my family had a close relationship with my great aunt.  We have close relationships with a LOT of our extended family -- aunts, uncles, cousins, 2nd and 3rd cousins, great aunts and uncles, -- literally everyone.  We have big families, and we know them and love them and are involved in each other's lives.  So when my great aunt passed, we were sad and we made time to travel to her hometown a few hours south for the funeral.  This was the first funeral for my 2 youngest and I wanted them to be as prepared as possible since death is a difficult concept for adults in many cases and they are only 4 and 5.  Also, they have yet to develop that voice in their heads that tells them "Hey, you shouldn't say that out loud because it could offend someone" so I wanted to try to get a little ahead of their possible reactions to hopefully keep them from embarrassing themselves (but mostly me).  The night before the funeral, I sat down with the 2 of them to discuss what would happen the next day and to answer any questions that they might have.  This is that conversation to the best of my recollection:

So you guys know that Aunt Martha died and that we are going to go to her funeral tomorrow, right?

Yeah.

Do you know what a funeral is?

No.

Okay, well I thought I'd talk to you guys about it a little bit so that you'd know what to expect and so that I could answer any questions that you might have, okay?

(Nods of assent from both)

When someone dies, the people that loved them come together to talk about them and their life and to comfort one another because they are sad that they are gone.  It will be at a funeral home, which is a place especially made for funerals.  Aunt Martha's body will be there, and we will be able to see her.  She will be in a coffin which is a box that they will bury her in. 

In the GROUND? 

Yes, they will bury her in the ground after the funeral.  The funeral will be sort of like church -- we will be quiet, listen to people talk about Aunt Martha and about death, and there will be prayers and maybe singing.  It is important that we sit quietly during this part, okay?

(Nodding)

When the funeral is over, we'll get in the car and drive to the cemetery.

Like the graveyard?

Yes.

Will there be ghosts there?

No.

What about zombies? Will there be zombies there?

No, there will not be zombies there.  When we get to the graveside, there will be a few more words spoken, probably a prayer, and then we will leave before they bury her, okay?  Do you guys have any questions?
 

At this point, I was sort of patting myself on the back.  I thought I had done a pretty good job preparing them without going into unnecessary details that would only confuse them.  I was expecting them to have a few general questions, but nothing major.

Can we watch?

Watch what? 

Watch them bury her. 

No. 

Why?

It's not proper to do that. 

Why?

Because it's just not. 

Where will they bury her?

In the cemetery.

But where?

In the ground.

But where in the ground?

Well, in her hometown.

BUT WHERE?! 

In the ground, next to her husband, in the cemetery, in her hometown.   

(Shocked) You mean they killed her husband too??!!  

NO!  He died before you were born -- he's been buried a long time. 

Like with the dinosaurs?

 So maybe I gave myself a little too much credit.  Or maybe I gave THEM too much credit.  But in any event, I had talked to them about what to expect and I felt a little better about everything.  After a little bit more discussion about death and how Aunt Martha had lived a long time and that she had died because she was old, etc. we went to bed so that we could head out the next morning.

When we got to my aunt's house the day of the funeral, my fears about the 5 year old's lack of a verbal filter were renewed.

Who lives here?

This is Aunt Martha's house.  

But she died. 

Yes, but this is her house. 

She died because she got really, really old, right? 

Yes. 

Just like you will die someday when you get really old, right mom? 

(Okay, thanks for that brutal reminder about my mortality). 

So we got dressed and went to the funeral home.  All of our family was there (including the 11 grand kids from our side of the family) and the kids seemed to be taking everything in and not freaking out at all.  I did have to stop all of the kids from running and laughing through the funeral home during the visitation -- they were playing some version of hide-n-go-seek.  I sent them outside, problem solved. 

The funeral home that hosted my family is very nice and the set up is good because it is adjacent to the cemetery.  When the funeral was over, we only had to drive through the parking lot and into the pretty large cemetery.  As we were winding through the graveyard, the 4 year old looked out the window at the headstones, puzzled:

Wait....are all of those rocks DEAD PEOPLE?!

(the 5 yr. old) Yep!  All them flowers too!

Sooooo.....will Aunt Martha grow into a rock?  Or a flower?

(the 5 yr. old) No!  They don't plant you.  They put you in the ground and then they put the rocks and flowers on top of you.

So you can't get out and be a zombie?

(the 5 yr. old) Yeah.

Creepy.
 

 I didn't try to correct any of this.  I was just thankful that this discussion had happened in the car.

In the end, the service was beautiful, my aunt was laid to rest with respect, and my kids made it through their first funeral with no emotional scarring and no embarrassing comments in front of other people.  Funerals are hard matter how old you are, and I am proud of my kids for the way that they behaved.  They may have had an inappropriate comment or conversation, but they lightened my mood with them.  Their curiosity and precociousness throughout the day were a welcomed reminder that life goes on and that we should always ask questions, be silly, and LIVE while we can, the best that we can.

Fuh-get About It!

I laugh all of the time about things my kids say.  I have often thought, "Man, I'm glad you said that at home" or "I am so glad no one else heard you say that" because some of the stuff that comes out of their mouths could easily be misinterpreted if someone didn't know the context.  This afternoon, I found out how very true that is.  I got an email from a teacher at my kid's school.  It is not from HIS teacher.  Just some random teacher that looks over the class during lunch and recess.  I wish that I knew how to screen-shot it, because it has this frou-frou border of hearts and flowers and vines, but I don't, so I'll just copy and paste and then change all of the names.

Dear Mrs. Caballero,
I wanted to touch base with you about something that has me a little concerned.  I recently overheard your son telling some other children about the secret compartments that you have in your car that you use to "smuggle contraband."  I pulled him aside and tried to speak with him privately to discover the origin of these stories.  At first he seemed confused and then he told me that he wasn't allowed to talk to me about it because I could get his family in trouble.  I asked him what contraband was, and he refused to answer.  When I pressed him about how he shouldn't make things up, he looked relieved and began nodding and eagerly agreeing with me that the stories were made up.  I have spoken to the assistant principle about this issue and she and I both agreed that since we don't really believe that your family is involved in anything illegal, that we'd bring this issue to you.  I hope that you can resolve this issue at home with him.  (Also, if you wouldn't mind, I'd love a little background on this situation as I am thoroughly confused).
Sincerely,
A Concerned Teacher

My son said WHAT???!!!

After reading this, I called the little offender downstairs to talk to him.  At first, he denied the whole thing saying that he had no idea what I was talking about.  But with a little prompting, it rang a bell.  After he got started with his story, I had a hard time keeping a straight face. 

It seems that he was telling his friends on the playground about our new van.  It has "Sto-N-Go" storage compartments beneath each seat.  He told them it was like being a smuggler and about all the stuff he could put in them.  In the telling of this most intriguing tale, he mentioned the word "contraband."  I stopped him here and asked him what contraband meant.  He said "I dunno.  I think it's just stuff.  I heard it on Star Wars."  I nodded and told him to proceed -- no sense going into all of the varied meanings of the word contraband with my 10 year old.  Well, he tells me that this teacher heard him and "went nuts" asking him all about this contraband, where it was hidden, whose it was, etc.  He said that he told her that he didn't want to talk about it because she was just trying to get his family in trouble.  [Sidebar here -- some good friends of ours had CPS (Child Protective Services) called on them by someone who was trying to make trouble (whole other story there).  He knew about it and thought this teacher was trying the same thing.]  Then he said that she started saying "IF you are making these stories up, you need to stop" and he was trying to end the conversation because recess was over and he didn't want to get into trouble for not going inside with his class, so he started nodding and agreeing with her. 

Ooooookay.  Now that I know what has happened, I am no longer annoyed with my son, but this teacher needs an intervention.  I am quite certain that anyone nosy enough to eavesdrop on a group of fourth grade boys on the playground could really use a hobby.  Surely there was juicier gossip from the girls.  Or here's a thought, why don't you restrict your busy-bodiness to the adults.  I guarantee that the stories in the teacher's lounge could put my kids smuggling tale to shame.  I mean, wow, talk about blowing things out of proportions.  This is a prime example of someone looking for trouble, creating conflict, and cultivating drama.  And people sticking their nose, or ears in this case, where they don't belong is how things get twisted around, misinterpretted, and cause real problems for families. 

My first reaction was to just ignore this.  But we all know that letting something like this go just isn't in my make up.  Still, since I have 2 kids at this school and 2 more who will attend in the next few years, I may have to deal with this woman in the future, so I needed to tread a little lightly here. 

I thought about being a total smart ass, something I am very good at, and making her think there might be something going on but not giving any indication that there was anything illegal involved by responding with something random and vague like "DID HE MENTION THE LEGOS??!!" with the hope that she would think that I was either completely insane or speaking in some sort of code.  Then I toyed with the idea of playing this out, leading her to believe that we WERE in fact smugglers or drug runners, or perhaps the kingpins of a human trafficking ring.  I could allude to a "family" connection or something like that (I actually have no idea how i would do this since my biggest brush with the law was doing 90 in a 65).  But if I took that route I ran the risk of CPS being called in and that is a headache (and potential heartache) that I don't want to deal with or put my kids through.  I saw first hand how stressful that can be even when the accusations are ridiculous and false because that's what happened to some very good friends of ours.  Also, posing as a smuggler could potentially draw the attention of the police, the FBI, or the ATF.  Or even worse than that, REAL SMUGGLERS -- some scary cartel or the mob.  (Yes, I am completely paranoid, go HERE if you need further verification of the insanity).

So to avoid any horse heads in my bed, police surveillance vans in front of my house, or CPS interviews, I simply emailed her back in my own personal style.  Without any frilly email stationary of hearts and vines.

Dear Concerned Teacher,
I'm sorry that my evil little mastermind has somehow convinced you that he is living in an episode of "Sons of Anarchy," but I assure you this was a gross misunderstanding.  As much of a welcomed change of pace a smuggling career might be to the day-to-day life of a stay at home mom, I am sorry to have to break it to you that we are not, in fact, working for any drug lords or human traffickers.  

Had this been any other day of the week, you might have been emailing me to find out if we actually had Jawas or Wookies or droids in our back yard (which is about as likely as us being smugglers). Seriously, the only place my kid has even heard the word "contraband" is on Star Wars when Han Solo and Chewbacca ran contraband in the Millennium Falcon.  He has Star Wars on the brain.  I taught him math with word problems about X-Wing Fighters.

Here is the explanation of what you overheard and misinterpreted:  We recently got a new van with "Sto-N-Go" storage compartments.  The kids are fascinated by them.  William has referred to them as "smuggler bins" because, well, he is a 10 year old kid and thats just the sort of thing that 10 year old boys do.  This afternoon my 7 year old daughter tried to hide in one.  She nearly fit because A) she is a tiny, tiny, human being, and B) the storage compartments really are quite large.  However,  I can assure you that the only things hidden in them are crumbs, stray toys, and wet wipes. 

If you promise not to turn us into the cops, I could totally score you some stale Cheetos from the bin in the back.

Sincerely,
Amused, But Completely Mundane Mom



Hopefully, this adequately delivers the necessary message.

Morning Relay

Last night I couldn't sleep.  I had a lot of things on my mind that I just kept over analyzing.  I tossed and turned until after 2 AM, knowing full well that when my alarm went off at 6:30 it would be difficult to get out of bed.  I mean, more difficult than usual.  It is NEVER easy for me to get out of bed in the mornings.  If I could, I would sleep until at least 10 AM every morning.  I am not ashamed to admit that I have considered homeschooling simply because it would allow me to sleep more.  (Oh, and all of that over-analyzing did not produce one tiny bit of productive thought.  It did, however, produce 8 pages of "notes" that do nothing beyond prove the insanity).

So I did fall asleep, finally, and my alarms began going off as scheduled at 6:30 in the morning.  At least I assume that they did since there is no reason for them to not go off.  However, I have no recollection of them going off because when I am asleep I do all sorts of crazy things.  Like turn off my alarms.  Because I am such a lover of sleep and getting up early is a challenge for me everyday (not just when I stay awake obsessing over things that cannot be changed until 2 AM), I have 4 separate alarms set -- 6:30, 6:45, 6:55, and 7:00.  Usually, I hit snooze at least until 6:50 or so.  If I continue to hit snooze until 7:00, I am running late.  I can still get the kids up, get them dressed, make their lunches, and get them out the door for their ride by 7:40 or so, but if there are any arguments to referee, any spilt milk or cereal to clean up, any lost homework to find, then it causes a great deal of stress for the kids and for me that results in yelling and I really hate yelling in the morning.  But today, I did not become even semi-conscious until my husband called to make sure that things were going smoothly. 

He called at 7:36.

The kids' ride is here by 7:40.

Crap.

So I jumped out of bed like my pants were on fire and yelled at my children like a drill sergeant.  I found their socks and shoes while they pulled on their clothes like a couple of rookie firefighters.  I brushed their hair while they put on their socks and shoes.  As soon as they each had on one shoe, we heard the honk of the horn from their ride.  I motioned to the dad who picks them up in the mornings that they were coming, just give me a minute by holding up one finger to the screen door.  I dug in my purse for lunch money for them because I had no time to make lunches.  I explained that I was giving them an extra 50 cents so that they could get ice cream since they hadn't gotten breakfast (hey, it was early.  It made perfect sense at the time when I was doing anything I could think of to make everything but the clock move faster).  They reminded me that it was picture day and I took a second to acknowledge that the shirts they were wearing would suffice for the standard school picture pose.  I whipped off a note to the 8 year old's teacher asking her to please allow her to brush her hair again before the picture was made so that she wouldn't look like the chick from "The Ring."  I sent them to quickly brush their teeth while I crammed things into their backpacks and then I kissed them on their heads and sent them out the door.  The 10 year old called back to me with a grin, "That was awesome.  We've never gotten ready that fast!"  I smiled and waved casually as if I agreed with him and then I went back into the house to make coffee.

The clock in the kitchen said 7:45.

I got 2 kids up, dressed, and out the door in less than 9 minutes.  I bet that is a record somewhere. 

I think that the morning relay could be an Olympic sport.  I'd be the gold medal holder. 

Sugar is Meth to A 2 and 4 Year Old

I happen to be a pretty laid back mom.  I try to keep things pretty loose and happy (although they often end with me getting overwhelmed and yelling and then feeling like a big pile of poo).  I have never been very concerned about things that my kids eat.  I mean, they eat like I do -- whatever is relatively fast and easy.  I do try to work in vegetables and fruit and limit the candy intake.  And I am obsessive about teeth-brushing.  But I have never been too concerned about soda intake.  My kids drink soda at least 2-3 times a week, and sometimes more. It has never been a problem.  My 9-year old had his first carbonated, caffeinated, beverage at about 18 months.  I half expected him to go berserk and bounce off the walls, but he didn't.  He just sucked on his straw and said "More!"  Kid number 2 came along, and the same thing -- gave her soda, waited for impending meltdown, and nothing happened.  I was thinking "Man, all of these people freaking out about kids and sugar are SOOOOOOO WRONG!!  Sugar doesn't effect my kids AT ALL!!"  I had witnessed my friends' kids go into sugar induced frenzies that rivaled the meth addicts I had seen on late night episodes on COPS.  My kids were special.  They could eat 2 cupcakes and guzzle a Dr. Pepper at a birthday party and fall asleep on the way home 30 minutes later.  I was certain that my kids had some sort of super gene that allowed them to be unaffected by sugar and caffeine.  It was like a super-power.

When kid number 3 came along, I assumed that the trend would continue.  But Lorelei was different from most kids -- and when she was younger, she had chronic tonsillitis and ear infections so I don't think that ANY amount of stimulants would have perked her up.  Then Jackson came along, and Lorelei had her tonsils taken out.  And here's one of the problems with having 4 kids:  you HAVE to be consistent in the way that you treat them and what they are allowed to do because they notice the inconsistencies.  So if William and Bella could have sugary-brown-goodness in the form of sodas, then Lorelei and Jackson wanted the same. 

I soon discovered that these 2 younger children did NOT have the super-power gene.  In fact, they appeared to have some mutated gene that caused complete irrational behavior accompanied by rotten attitudes and violent mood swings when it encountered sugar in their systems.  (I really would need Allie from Hyperbole and a Half to properly illustrate this, but if you read her "God of Cake" post and take note of the drawings, you will get the general idea).  As amusing as it is to see a 2 and 4 year old ping around the house like pin-balls every once and awhile, and as entertaining as conversations with them can be during these periods, I have decided that this is just simply not going to work.  I had hoped to possibly build their resistance to sugar by keeping it as a regular component of their diets, but this hypothesis has proven to be a complete failure, and now I have created 2 little sugar fiends.  This is a typical morning conversation at our house:

Me: Guys, what do you want for breakfast?
Jackson: I want CANDY!!!!
Me: You CANNOT have candy for breakfast.  How about some cereal or a bagel?
Jackson: Can I have a lollipop?
Me: No.  Lollipops are candy, and you CANNOT have candy for breakfast.
Lorelei: Can we have candy AFTER breakfast?
Me: No.
Lorelei: When do we get candy then?
Me: I don't know, but right now we are talking about breakfast, so what do you want for breakfast?
Lorelei: Can I have Dr. Pepper?
Me:  No, you CANNOT have Dr. Pepper with breakfast.  Would you like some milk?
Lorelei: Can I have chocolate in it?
Me: No.
Both:  (Chanting and jumping around in circles) Chocolate milk!  Chocolate milk!  Chocolate milk!
Repeat this conversation for both lunch and dinner, as well as for any snacks, and you will get a rough idea of what a typical day of feeding these two is like.

They are both also incredibly gifted when it comes to ferreting out candy that may be hidden somewhere in the house, and they work as a team to get it.  It is not at all unusual to find the chair from the dining table in front of the fridge with a stool perched precariously on top while they try to get to the candy bowl on top of the fridge.  They have perfected this to the point that in the 3 minutes it takes me to go pee, they can easily be standing on their impromptu ladder and stretching their grubby little hands over the edge of the bowl before I get back.  And I have learned that any candy I get for MYSELF needs to be hidden extra well because there is something about the fact that it is MY candy that makes it extra appealing to them.  Jackson once found my stash of Rolos (which was in a shoebox under my bed that he had never seen) and while I was in the shower, the 2 of them ate over half a bag.  I now hide my candy in the medicine cabinet behind the nebulizer.  They HATE the medicine cabinet (with the exception of the Band-Aids, which is an entirely different post) so I am pretty sure that my Rolos are safe.

Next time I feel up to being entertained by giving them a sugar-fix, I will be sure to video it and post it here.

I LOVE You! Chocolate is My Favorite!

I am a white, Southern, Christian, woman who was raised in the great State of Alabama.  Because of this, people already assume that I am at least a little racist, so I try to be conscientious of how I act and what I say so that it cannot be misconstrued as anything prejudiced.  I have also raised my kids not to see skin color any differently than they would see hair color or eye color. 

When William (my oldest) had his first real friendship with a person of color he was almost 3.  He was telling me about 2 friends in his preschool class, both named Anthony.  I said "Does it confuse you that they have the same name?" And he thought about it and said "No, because one of the Anthonys is colored like your coffee and the other one is like your Coke." I was glad that he had not even known that they were Hispanic and Black, but I decided that maybe I should teach him those terms in the future to avoid confusion. 

Bella, my second oldest, is my drama queen.  She is all about glitz, glamour, and fashion.  She is my husband (who is Puerto Rican) made over in female form -- olive complexion, big brown eyes, the whole thing.  The first time she saw a little Black girl with all of the beautiful braids, she wanted the same -- I think that she was about 3, maybe a little closer to 4.  I tried to explain that her hair wouldn't do that, and her over-intelligent response was "Yes it will.  You said that all people are the same and I want my hair like that."  I had to think about this.  She was right, of course.  I HAD told them that all people were the same.  So how do I explain that we are all different but the same to a kid? I told her that it doesn't mean that all of us are just alike -- some are tall and some are short, some have brown hair and some are blondes, etc, and HER hair, which was like MY hair, just wouldn't do that. 

Now Jackson, the 2 year old, SEES the differences in color, but it doesn't bother him. (I am intentionally skipping Lorelei for a reason for now).  William's best friend is a very sweet Black kid from around the corner named Ben.  Whenever Jackson sees other Black people from a distance, he AUTOMATICALLY thinks that they are Ben.  Today while we were waiting in the carpool line, he saw 2 black teenage girls walking across the school lawn and he starts pointing towards them and saying "Mama!  I see girl-Bens!"  Although there is nothing wrong with that, in fact it is kind of cute, it made me realize that had the car windows been down and they had heard him, (or worse, MIS-heard him), it could prove embarrassing.  I made a mental note to discuss with my husband how to best discuss racial difference with our kids.  But leave it to Lorelei to not wait for me to have a plan. 

William went home from school with Ben today, and I took the other 3 with me to do a little shopping -- the Daddy/Daughter Dance is next weekend and the girls needed jewlery, tights, etc, and Jackson needed shoes.  I told them that if they behaved, we could go eat at IHOP (knowing full well that regardless of their behavior we were eating out somewhere because I had not prepared anything for dinner).  So, they were good and we went to IHOP and were seated by a nice looking young Black man who started to take our order by asking what we'd like to drink.  I ordered Coke and coffee (my usual) and the kids wanted milk.  Then Lorelei said that she wanted chocolate milk and then they all wanted chocolate milk.  So Lorelei looks at our waiter, who is patiently waiting for her to finish talking, and says "We LOVE chocolate milk!  Our Grandma makes us chocolate milk and it is sooooo chocolatey!  JUST LIKE YOU!"  The poor guy who had been listening and nodding along as she went on and on looked like someone had just smacked him.  He looked at me and all I could say was "I'm so sorry.  She really doesn't mean anything by it.  She's 4 and has no filter."  Meanwhile, Lorelei is still talking.  She asks him "Do you taste like chocolate?  I think I want to lick you."  I want to crawl under the table.  Bella decides to take over "Lorelei!  Don't be rude!  He's not chocolate, he's just Black, and you cannot lick him."  I am contemplating just excusing ourselves from the table and leaving.  Jackson looks up at the waiter and blurts out "I love you!!  Chocolate is my favorite!! Can I lick you too??!"  Crap.  So I am now waiting for management to ask us to leave and I can feel the heat radiating from my face and I know that I am beet red with embarassment so I just put my head in my hands and start to apologize again.  But before I can even say a word, our great waiter starts laughing.  I look up and I find that he is laughing at ME!  He says, "I've never had a customer say that they love me.  Or ask if they could lick me.  Kids are so honest."  I smiled, still embarrased, and answered "Yeah.  Honest and loud.  That is my kids."