Plagues

It all started the Sunday after my last post. Baby R started throwing up in the middle of the night. By lunch the next day, S was also sick. Thankfully that wrapped up by Tuesday evening. However, Wednesday morning, Baby R said her head was itchy. DH and I, having had zero experience with lice, initially dismissed it as a stalling tactic and wanting another stay home day. However, after looking more thoroughly, calling the school nurse, calling the pediatrician, posting on FB for advice and, of course, Googling, we confirmed she did, in fact, have lice.

DH ran to Walgreens to grab a box of RID. I sent S to school with the neighbor. Got Baby R shampooed and combed out in about 2 hours. Then, per school protocol, sent her to class. I took the rest of the day off so I could take everything in the house that could be washed to the laundromat and  do 10 loads of laundry at once, get my car cleaned, bag everything in the house that couldn't be washed and put it in quarantine in the spare bedroom, and vacuum the carpets and the couches and under all the furniture.

In the last four years, our experience has always been that whenever there was a case of lice at the school, a note was sent home to let everyone know they need to be on the lookout. FYI, this year, the CDC downgraded lice from a health risk, to an inconvenience. If you've ever had to deal with this pesky bug, you know that's an understatement. Our school district, as well as others nearby, no longer notify anyone - not even the teacher of the classroom in which the afflicted child attends.

I checked everyone else in the family every night and every morning. Each night, I spent an hour combing out R's head to get rid of the nits just like the instruction video showed. Each morning when Baby R woke up, I had her get undressed in her bed and go straight to the bathroom to put on clean clothes while I stripped her bed and washed the sheets. And yet, Saturday morning, as I was checking S before taking her to cheerleading, I found she was infected.

DH had stocked up on RID after the initial discovery, so I immediately treated S. She has a tender head and hair that's so long it's almost down to her rear end. Several friends recommended professional lice removal services after my initial inquiry, but I couldn't fathom the idea of paying $90/hour for someone else to do it, regardless of how daunting a task treating S was going to be. But after spending 3 hours combing out her hair, I simply couldn't get the nits out. I called Combers and they were able to get us in right away.

While there, I asked them to check me, and I, too, had it. Obviously, I was going to have to have them treat me as well. DH is amazing at many things, but this was a bit outside of his skill set. Thankfully, Combers just had a flat fee instead of an hourly rate.

Sunday morning when I was combing out R's hair, there were dozens more nits than there had been the previous few days! Clearly another one had hatched; R had scratched one spot so much she had a scab. I felt terrible; clearly I wasn't doing a good enough job myself. I bit the bullet and took her to Combers, too.

The woman there was very supportive and told me I'd done the best I could. I found out that part of the reason I was having so much trouble was that the comb that is provided in the OTC products is inferior and only gets about 50% of the nits out. I purchased one from the salon, and it was much more effective. I also found out that the RID is a pesticide. Not something I would have used on my kiddos had I known!

I continued checking the boys twice a day, combing out the girls nightly, and having DH comb mine. He was a trooper about doing it, and I bit my tongue through the painful pulling. Unfortunately, a few days later, I found nits on DH, so he treated his hair with RID, and I added him to the combout routine. I thought we'd made it without Cinco getting it, but unfortunately, he finally had it, too. I wasn't going to treat a toddler with the pesticides in RID, and I wasn't going to spend $120 on professionals either, so we just shaved his head. My poor baby!

We girls had a follow-up visit 9 days after our treatment, and we were all clean. Hallelujah! Finally, it seemed life would be back to normal.

And then the next morning, Cinco had a fever and we had to keep him home for 2 days.

I'm happy to say that we had our second follow up visit at Combers this week and it also came back clean, so I'm optimistic that the plagues have finally ended at our house.

(This was not a sponsored post, but I'm including a link to Combers website because I thought they did an amazing job and would recommend them to anyone unfortunate enough to have to deal with lice. They also have a lot of good information on the site regarding myths and facts about lice.)

Little Man

These are notes from the last six months that I never got around to posting. Sigh. Added a few new ones at the end as well.

Cinco is adorable in his uniqueness. S loved to hold my ears when she was nursing/snuggling before bed. Cinco likes to hold my hair, and unlike most babies, he doesn't yank on it. Usually. :)

If he's lying on the floor drinking a bottle and near a wall, he'll crawl his feet up the wall so his bum is up in the air. Silly boy.

He started putting his head down on the floor when he crawls like a bulldozer, though usually with his head turned so his ear is what is rubbing on the carpet. Our dog used to do that when he had an itchy ear. But buddy, you have hands, not paws. What are you doing?

He took his first steps when he was 11 months old.

He's not doing much signing, but he does say "mama," "dada," "baba," and "mi" for milk.

He waved bye-bye for the first time while DH was in Germany.

He had his 1-year checkup today and he's


Skip ahead to August

He's singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

He stomps his foot and says "No!" when he's angry.

He holds his legs so you can't take his pants off when he doesn't want his diaper changed - smart kid.

When I carry him downstairs, I say "boom" as we go down each step - "boom, boom, boom, boom."
So when he wants to go downstairs, he says "BoomBoom."

He started calling his blankie "KiKi" so the other day when he wanted to take his blanket downstairs, he said, "KiKi BoomBoom." I briefly wondered if we were in a brothel.

He loves to snuggle and he reaches his little arms as far as he can to get around to your biceps and squeezes as hard as he can to hug.

He tells me to "Sit!" when he wants to keep rocking before bed.

He says "foffee" for coffee, "hee haw" for horse, "bo-bots" for robots, "hoopsy" for oopsy, and now he calls blankies "gankies."

He pretends to be a kitty and meows.

He holds  a cracker with his thumb and his first two fingers.

When his hands are dirty, he makes fists and picks up his cup to drink.

He's slept in his big boy bed off and on a few times always climbing back in his crib in the middle of the night. He finally slept in it for a whole night this week!

He's become an expert at stalling at bedtime, just like his sisters.

Happy New Year

So many things that were great from last year I never got around to posting about. I'm hoping to remedy that this year. But after talking to people who read our Christmas letter that summarized 2015, I realized how much we really went through, and cut myself a break for slacking on blogging. I definitely spent most of the year getting by with Dory's motto to "Just Keep Swimming" and focusing only on the task at hand. So here's to a mellower 2016!

One of Those Days

End of daylight savings wasn't as bad as it could have been. Halloween landing on the Saturday night before worked out well. Still, Cinco was up at 6am on Sunday, which explains why a lot of what happened yesterday, happened.

While eating breakfast, he slipped off the chair and hit his cheekbone and bruised it.

At church, he pushed the "Call For Help" button on the elevator. The fire department came.

In the playroom after service, he slipped and fell and got a bloody nose.

We decided to leave before anything else happened and walked over to the park where he promptly fell and scraped his cheek climbing on a retaining wall.

And then got a second bloody nose when he fell on the playground equipment.

We got home, and while I was putting him down for his nap, Baby R decided to "color" with stamp pads and got ink all over her legs, hands, and in places on her arms and stomach, as well as the kitchen floor.

And then I ran away. But I came back. And we had lots of snuggles that made it all worth while.

That, and then the Royals won the World Series for the first time in 30 years. And suddenly it became the Best. Day. Ever.

So This Happened...

My cell phone rang yesterday afternoon while I was at work. I didn't recognize the number, so let it go. When it beeped a couple of minutes later to let me know I had a voicemail, I went ahead and listened to it. It was R's kindergarten teacher calling to tell me R had cut her own hair at school. The teacher went on to say she wasn't sure when it had happened, she hadn't seen it happen but had just found the hair sitting in her spot. She asked R about it, and R said she didn't know and thought maybe she had pulled it out. The teacher told her it looked like it was cut with scissors. R said she didn't remember but maybe she had cut it. So the teacher is keeping her scissors on her desk for a few days until R can earn them back. She was very apologetic in the message, and ended by saying they usually make it a few more days into the year before someone cuts their hair, and that she was sending the hair home in an envelope.

I could not stop giggling at my desk. R is the most thoughtful and kind-hearted soul, but she's also mischievous and a bit of a rascal. It doesn't surprise me at all that she cut her hair. It's kind of a rite of passage. I feel like most kids either cut their own hair, or have a sibling who cuts it. It's definitely nothing to get worked up about in my opinion; natural consequences are really effective and there's no permanent damage as her hair will grow back. And since I was prepared with the knowledge before I picked her up, I was able to use it as a learning opportunity. She was adorably chastened when I asked her how her day went. Guess we can check that off the kid experience list for our house!

Back to School

 Last Wednesday was the first day of 3rd grade for S, and Friday was Baby R's first day of kindergarten! It was, of course, a huge milestone, and DH was luckily able to go late to the office so he could walk with us.

At Meet the Teacher night, R had been nervous about not having any friends, and I told her once we met her teacher, she would already have one friend for the first day. I privately let the teacher know of her concerns, so when we were leaving, she called R over and said that there was a little girl who was nervous about her first day and asked R if she could be a special helper on the first day and befriend the other little girl so she wouldn't be lonely. Brilliant! Give her a way to help so she's not thinking about her own problems.

All went well the first day. But then Monday came, and she lost her water bottle and lunchbox, and yesterday they girls had their first tardy. And today they had dentist appointments at lunchtime (because 6 months ago, I didn't realize school would already be in session), and I had to pick them up at exactly the same time as the kindergarteners were going to the cafeteria. Not only did R not get to eat, but today was supposed to be the first day she was going to get to have school lunch. For a little kid who's looked forward to doing such a big kid thing, it was devastating. She cried all the way to the dentist's, and even into the chair. She finally calmed down, and after her cleaning, she went to play in the waiting area while I set the next appointment, and she fell and scraped a scab off, and her leg started bleeding. Major meltdown again. Got that addressed, then picked up fast food since she still hadn't eaten, got to school and no one was in her class. She was distraught. After eliminating art, P.E. and music as possibilities, figured out they were at recess, and another teacher helped her outside. Finally got back to work - two hours later.


I totally get why all my friends told me I shouldn't be worried about not being able to stay home with the kids when they were babies, and that it would be worse once they were in school. It will be a miracle if we make it to May at this point. I'm so stressed out by the time I get to work, and I haven't even started my day yet. Working on coming up with a better system, because we just can't keep having awful starts to our day. Pray for me, friends!

A Message To My Children: Life Is Choices

Diets do not work. Food is not bad. Don't say you can't have something. Think about your food every time you eat. Ask yourself if you're making a healthy choice or not. And don't feel guilty when you don't. The purpose of food is fuel for your body. Don't let it turn into anything more than that.

People are flawed. They will say mean things about you that aren't true. Don't let them define what you think about yourself. Choose to believe the truth: you are beautiful and kind and made in God's image.

Sometimes life will be hard. Mistakes happen. Problems exist. You can wallow in the negative or choose to be thankful for the good and do what you can to make things better.

No matter how hard you try not to, you will make a bad choice. That's ok. Do what you can to fix it, but don't dwell on it after all is said and done. Decide to make a better choice next time.

Be quick to listen, but slow to speak and act. Before making any decision, seek God's will.

You can't control anything in this world. Life is unfair. The only thing you can control is how you react to things. You get to choose how you let things affect you. If good things happen, soak it in. Let the bad bounce off.

I know all of this is easier said than done. I need to take my own advice. I'm working on it. I pray you'll grasp it sooner than I did.