Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Lice Hunt

Fall in my house means a few things - eating more pasta, wearing sweaters and warm socks, washing our hands more, pumping up on Vitamin C and kicking up the lice search.  This is the second time I have been on the lice search, mainly because this is the second year my oldest daughter has been in school but I am more frighten  than last year.  There currently is an outbreak at my daughter's school and I don't think anything scares me more than the possibility of my daughter coming home with lice.  Well except maybe having to pay more taxes, or eating all the Halloween candy before Halloween, or maybe even having food in my teeth in public and no one telling me.
So, yes it's been a few weeks since this whole lice thing started and every day when Grace comes home from school, I quickly search through her head.  I do another scan later on and I am starting to feel like a monkey a bit with all this nit searching (actually if anyone does have a monkey for rent, could I borrow it?).  I honestly I really don't know what I am searching for.  Ok, I know what I am suppose to be looking for, but since I haven't seen them in the flesh before I'm blind to what I should be hunting.  I've only seen lice in pictures where they are magnified by 500 percent.
I have never had lice (knock on wood) but I remember scaring my mom when I was a kid.  I think I was in grade 1 or 2 and it was time for the annual lice check. Our class was called down to the office where some lady searched through our hair. I was pulled out because I believe she saw something in my white hair and so I had to be checked again.  A bug was found, but - but not a lice bug.  Now, I did have baths and I was suppose to wash my hair but come on, I was young and had too much too do than washing my hair all the time.  I had sand to play in, books to look at, crafts to do - not spend my time washing my hair.  Plus, it took forever for my hair to dry.  So that is my only near lice experience and hopefully my last one.
So until this whole thing is over my daughter will have dirty hair in braids unless I can send her to school with a shower cap on - or is that too over the top?

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Has anyone seen my baby?

I was folding some laundry today and as I was folding some pj pants that Grace use to wear but now Leah wears and it hit me - my baby isn't a that much of a baby anymore.  I've gotten use to it, a bit, with Grace but it's new with Leah.  My youngest will be two in December but she doesn't look her age, she is much taller and since she's the baby she thinks she can do things that Grace does - and most of the time she can, with a little help from mommy.
Where did my baby go?  I'm going to try to not get too sappy, but some days it seems like she's still a newborn.  I mostly get these feelings when it's nap time or bed time.  But I do miss cuddling with her - now while she does still like to sit on my lap, Leah mostly like to sits on her own on the couch.
I think it's hitting me harder seeing her wearing Grace's hand me downs because when my five year old wore them the first time around, I knew that one day another child would also wear them.  But now, Leah might be the last one to wear them and it's kind of sad - even though they're just clothes.  I didn't feel like this when either of my girls out grew the newborn clothes but for some reason, the bigger the clothes are the harder it gets to pack them away once they outgrow them.  I guess since their personality has emerged more the older they get, it's almost like a packing up a piece of them and a part of that time in their life as well.
Are you crying yet?

Terrible Two's

For the past month or so I kept trying to post something new but then something else seemed more important and really for those of you who don't know, writing is like exercise...if you stop for any length of time it's hard to get started again.   But here I am, getting starting again.
The past month has been all about getting back - getting back to school, getting back into the routine of things, getting the house ready for winter, all that stuff.  Isn't it strange how more difficult and how much more time it takes to get back into a routine than it is to break one?
Since Grace is in school full time, I am now able to spend more time and attention on Leah who has started her terrible two's very early.  Everything is her's, she only wants to do what she wants to do and when she doesn't want to listen she really does plug her ears with her fingers.  I don't know what I am going to do with her, it's hard to not laugh sometimes because she is so determined and really thinks she can do whatever her older sister does.  My little tiny terror.  At least she hasn't started the whole scribbling on the walls, or ripping all the books, or flushing anything down the toilet stage yet.
So I have been trying to remember how to deal with a toddler again, which in another way is hard because Grace didn't go through the terrible two's, she went through the terrible three's.  More difficult in someways because you figure as a parent maybe you have by-passed having to go through the dreaded two stage, but then your kid turns three and all of a sudden it's melt down after melt down.  so I guess what I am trying to say is while I don't always enjoy trying to explain to a toddler why it's not a good idea to run around the house with a steak knife or why standing in the bathtub isn't a good idea or why we shouldn't drink the bathwater (all true stories by the way), I think I'd rather go through this terrible stage now than later on because hopefully once it's done it's done....until the teen years.