The Vaulted Files: Infestation??? Horrors!!

Tags

head lice, Logic Products Group, natural lice remedies

I have a rather insane storage vault of unpublished posts, both for this blog and for my life and love ramblings over at DomAndLori.  Some of them are not just unpublished, they are unfinished.  But I intend at some point to publish them anyway. Here is the first to come out of the vault: 

 

Let me be honest at the start, here: this is not something I want to be talking about.  For the second Christmas holiday in a row, my family is battling head lice.  Go ahead and gag now.  I’ve made a morning of it, myself.

I truly had hoped that we would be done with all this nonsense once the kids got out of elementary school.  Oh, sure, I had seen many a note come home in their backpacks about a lice sighting in their wee years’ classrooms, and I was smugly grateful that it never struck us personally.  Until 2012.  There we were, minding our own business, settling into the new home, enjoying Christmas and BAM!!  We were hit with a one-two punch.  Vic and me.  E-gad!  This is what I get for snuggling my kids?  I took roughly five days off of work to deal with 1) the infestation of those little unseen buggers and 2) my personal trauma/embarrassment/failure as a parent.  Overdramatic much??

To debunk any misconceptions of the nastiness that surely must exist in my home and on my person, I learned the following during that horrific week of wanting to claw my own eyes out:

1. Lice attaches itself better to clean hair.  Yes, folks, contrary to popular belief, you do not have to be a filthy person to suffer the injustice of head lice.  Clean hair holds the eggs better, so I guess, Yay, we’re clean!
2. You don’t just have to share hairbrushes with someone or sleep on their pillow to get head lice.  Lice are sneaky, creative travelers and sometimes where it came from and how you got it is only a guess.
3. There is a proliferation of chemical-laden treatments on the shelves of our local pharmacies.  None of them are natural or holistic, and very few of them are safe for repeated use.  Granted, I almost don’t care if it burns my scalp off, I want to use whatever I can as often as I can to make the hell pass more quickly.

Last year as I was confessing the horror to a coworker, she knowingly stated, “It doesn’t matter how natural and against chemicals you are, once you are dealing with head lice, you will practically douse your kids in gasoline just to get rid of it.”  Omigosh, having now been through it twice, I can tell you…truer words were never spoken.

For months afterward, any time either of my children itched above the neck they would run to me and blurt, “Check me!!” and I would commence to combing through their hair to make sure they were not infested again.  And fortunately, they never were.  But there I was this morning, unassumingly stroking my son’s hair as he slouched on the bathroom floor, nauseated from what we would determine four hours later to be the flu.  The flu, people.  My son is wrestling the flu and I’m thinking out loud, “We need to cut your hair soon, sweetie.  Wait a minute, what’s this in your hair? WHAT THE %$#@! IS THAT?!!!!!!!”

But I knew exactly what it was.  And I was nearly sick right beside him.  Within minutes I was checking the Hubster, my daughter and myself, determining whom to treat and whom to all-out quarantine, practically in tears with the memory of last year.  But I sniffed the tears back, grabbed my keys and a ponytail holder and sped off to WalMart at 6:30 in the morning to begin my journey:

Step 1: Drop well over $100 on every kind of lice treatment on the shelf.  Throw in some homeopathic cough meds and several packs of Ricola, and hope something gives the kid some relief.

Step 2: Treat every head with gawdawful pesticides while Hubster strips beds down and begins the laundry cycles.  I love the Sanitize feature of my washing machine.  It’s great for making sure my stuff is clean when we’re dealing with crap like this.  Forget that it takes four days to wash two loads.  Sheesh!

Step 3: Send text messages to family members whom we have been around during the holidays.  Pray that they don’t have it too.  This brings up a touchy point:  Yes, it is highly embarrassing to admit to someone that you have head lice.  I get that.  I’ve had it twice now and sharing the news hasn’t gotten any easier.  You will feel like a pariah.  But hear me on this one thing: You must let others know so that they can treat and/or prevent the malady in their own households.  Yes, it sucks to call someone up and say, “Hey, great seeing you the other day! I’m so glad we got to spend those eight hours together!  By the way, we have lice, so check your heads.”  There’s no easy way to do it.  But you have to.  And when that person you’ve called is dealing with head lice later, hopefully he or she will remember your honesty and pay it forward.

Step 4: Run to the pediatrician’s office for flu test on a Saturday morning.  Thank God they are open on weekends!

Step 5: Take a moment to actually breathe and read the label on the spray can for the furniture.  I had forgotten why I didn’t use it last year.  Dear goodness.  We would have to sit all four of us plus the dogs outside in the cold while the stuff dries on the furniture, then ventilate the cold into the house so that we can once again breathe indoors.  Who the hell created this stuff?  Monsanto?

Having two dogs and one flu-ridden son prevents me from opening windows and spraying toxic chemicals in my home on a December day.  So I took to the Internet, hoping something somewhere would provide some measure of treatment for my furniture and non-washables.  Vacuuming, steaming and scrubbing just doesn’t seem like enough.  In the five days I took off work last year last year I wiped down, scrubbed and cleaned every surface to the best of my ability.  I was exhausted.  I’ll do it all over again out of necessity, but I’d like some help.

And so I stumbled upon the Logic Products Group, founded by a mom just like us.  She too dealt with the horror of head lice and discovered that there were no natural, safe treatments available.  She has remedied that.  I ended up on her site because of her household spray, which is reported to be safe for repeated use around pets and people, unlike any of the spray products you will find at the pharmacy.  I ordered a bottle straight from her site and another bottle from Amazon with my Prime membership.  Unfortunately, I won’t have the product until next week, so I’ll be vacuuming and scrubbing until then.  Without the benefit of trying the products yet, I am impressed by what I see on their site.  They have general products for the home as well as flea and tick treatment for pets. (Update: I purchased the furniture spray and the lice shampoo.  I sprayed everything down and was pleased with the spray, but did not have the opportunity to use the shampoo, as it arrived a week after the trauma had ended.)

The Nourishing Gourmet also wrote a great post on natural treatments of head lice.  Neem oil and tea tree oil are top choices for treatment and prevention in her post.

So – quick recap – we have head lice, flu and now (oh joy!) a puking dog.  There simply is not enough wine in this house.  I seem to recall a bottle of tea tree oil in my bathroom cabinet, so I’m off to mix that into some water and spray on all our heads for good measure.  Hey – better than gasoline!

Like Riding a Bike

Exactly six weeks ago I was driving my car and talking to my kids about their falling grades and sagging attitudes.  I had to admit that I, too, was not quite myself in the home-stretch of waiting for our home to be built.  My kiddos, who are usually good students, were seeing their second-quarter grades drop into oblivion.  They both admitted that they could do better, and they just hadn’t been putting forth the effort like they used to.  I in turn admitted that I hadn’t been doing all my “mom duties” like I used to either.  I let stress wear me down, almost to the point of illness again.  My purpose-driven-ness got put on autopilot, and many of my own “Oh-no-I-WON’Ts” morphed into “Oh-what-the-hells.” It was a rough autumn, to say the least.

My own parents are Super-Heroes for taking us all in.  For four solid months I did not cook, clean, wash laundry or make a bed.  I think I only fed my dogs twice in all that time.  Knowing how hard it was for all of us to be without permanent residence, my mom made good-and-sure that we were spoiled like last week’s fruit.  I vocalized only once, but secretly feared for at least two months, that I would completely forget how to maintain a household.  (I love you, Mom!)

We moved in to our new house on December 7, and though we were so glad to have our own place, I wondered if I would actually find my feet again in my new kitchen and utility room.  I am pleased to say that I have.

Baby Girl was sick the entire first week after our move, and while I felt I really needed to be at work, the cosmos and my husband felt otherwise and set me straight pretty quickly.  As the Hubster pointed out, “She is sick.  She needs to stay home and rest.  And, you have more sick time than I do.”  Point taken.  So in between reading to Vic and checking for fever, I unpacked a box or two and then decided we were going to need to eat, and if I had anything to say about it, we were NOT eating more fast food.  (Yes – I had regressed THAT far!)  I pulled out the dutch oven, washed off the summer’s storage dust, and proceeded to make Red Beans and Sausage.  Then I whipped up some olive mix, made muffalettas and baked a whole chicken in my sparkly new-fangled oven.  I’m sharing all this to express my surprise that my domestic abilities have not faded with the season.

I bet I could still ride a bike if I tried!  But it’s rainy and cold, and I’m a weather wimp, so that experiment will have to wait.

We Didn’t Start the Fire

Tags

billy joel, history, lyrics homeschooling

We were driving down the interstate the other day, singing along to Billy Joel on my car stereo.  I don’t sing well – AT ALL – but it doesn’t stop me from belting out my faves whenever I have the chance.  “Find some noise-cancelling headphones if ya don’t like it!” is what I tell my kids when they hear me crooning and give me the look that begs me to keep my musical appreciation to myself.

Usually our musical conversations enlighten them and I love giving them the scoop on everything from Bon Jovi and Alice Cooper to 8-tracks and marching bands.  It also assures them that I’m either rockin’ smart, or certifiably crazy.

Some days it’s just a coin toss.

So, anyhoo, as I’m belting out the fast-paced lyrics to We Didn’t Start the Fire and playing that video in my head of me and Dom singing this song at the top of our lungs in the back of Mama Mia’s (who remembers those days?!) it occurred to me that I not only wanted to share with my kids all the memories I have of this music, but also what the music means.

This one just happens to be a history book set to a drum beat.

So this is my version of homeschooling:  I told the kids that we are going to dissect this song.  Item by item, I want them to research the topics mentioned and learn about why they are/were known by name and what historical significance they held that has earned them a spot in the lyrics of this tune.  I plan to chime in heavily with my personal memories of these events.  But I have a feeling I’ll learn almost as much as they will.

Excuse me, please, while I crank the volume up to 10. 😉

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray,
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio,
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe,

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, “The King and I” and “The Catcher in the Rye”
Eisenhower, vaccine, England’s got a new queen,
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye 

[Chorus:]
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it 

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc,
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron,
Dien Bien Phu falls, “Rock Around the Clock”

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team,
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland,
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev,
Princess Grace, “Peyton Place”, trouble in the Suez

[Chorus]

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac,
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, “Bridge on the River Kwai”
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball,
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide,

Buddy Holly, “Ben Hur”, space monkey, Mafia,
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go,
U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy,
Chubby Checker, “Psycho”, Belgians in the Congo,

 [Chorus]

 Hemingway, Eichmann, “Stranger in a Strange Land”
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion,
“Lawrence of Arabia”, British Beatlemania,
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson,

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex,
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say?

[Chorus]

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again,
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock,
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline,
Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan,

“Wheel of Fortune”, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide,
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz,
Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law,
Rock and roller cola wars, I can’t take it anymore

[Chorus]
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on

Makes ya wanna go buy a Billy Joel CD, doesn’t it? 😉
We Didn’t Start the Fire, from the album Storm Front by Billy Joel.  Lyrics obtained and copied from MetroLyrics.com 

Beware the Bullies

I’m a reasonable individual, I think.  I have some very sure-footed people in my life, and they keep me grounded.  I make every effort to be honest with myself.  I am acutely aware of when I am deceiving myself.  I know when I have spoken out of turn.  I know instantly when I have hurt someone.  I try to be better than I am. It is a never-ending effort, an unreachable goal for which I continue to strive.  I work hard to be the exact same person in private that I am in public, save the fact that most people who know me have never seen me REALLY pissed off. I’m not saying I never morph into the demon bride, just that I am totally aware of when I am doing so.  And I do exert some measure of energy to control it.

I believe this is what it means to be an adult.  I assume that all other adults understand this and live it themselves.

I am wrong.

My son is 11.  6^th Grade, first year of middle school.  A difficult year for most preteens.  They have enough crap to deal with.  Schedule changes, tardy bells, lockers, gruff gym coaches.  Oh, and let’s not forget the emotional side of middle school – too young to be left on your own, too old to be babied.  It’s a tough spot to be in.  It’s hard enough to watch.

Aaron is intelligent, quiet, and shy.  He is too much like me in that he will not stand up for himself or speak his mind.  My husband and I worried most about the potential for him to be bullied in middle school.  Aaron dealt with mini-bullies in elementary school.  Kids who, for the most part, just didn’t know how to be friends with a quiet dude.  Aaron took it all in stride.  I communicated regularly with his teachers and the counselor so that we could avoid any emotional damage from these more aggressive children.   As Aaron went to 6^th Grade, Dom and I talked with him a lot about bullies and the need to come to us if ever another student made him feel threatened.  We ask constantly about his relationships with his peers.  We monitor and we decipher and we talk.

So when Aaron started having trouble sleeping right as Christmas break was ending, I couldn’t help but think he was anxious about returning to school.  He assured me that wasn’t it.  But then, he would end up in my bed within ten minutes of tucking him into his own, claiming that he couldn’t sleep, that he was “nervous” or “had butterflies.”  What in the world was there to be nervous about?  We talked about how the other students treat him – ad nauseum – and he assured us that all his student relationships were fine.  Maybe he was just nervous about his assignments, he offered.

Last night I had just closed my eyes when Victoria came into my room to inform me that Aaron couldn’t sleep and was upset.  Again. “Send him in,” I said.  When he curled up beside me I looked at him in the darkness and said, “Dude, you’ve GOT to come clean with what’s bothering you.  It will never go away if you keep it all inside.  I love you, and I will protect you until the day I die, but I have to know what we’re up against.  Spill it, and don’t leave out ANYTHING.”

It’s the grades.  True, they reflect that he has not put his best effort into his studies, but we also know that he has blown off more than a few homework assignments.  Poor grades are a consequence for not doing the work, and we don’t sugar-coat that fact.  To ease his mind about “failing” anything, I grabbed the iPad and we logged into the parent portal on our school system’s website to review his current grades, which are likely to be the final grades for the quarter that ends in three days.  His worst are high C’s, the “proof in the pudding” of not exerting the effort he is capable of giving.

It struck me as odd that he was most concerned over a class in which he has a high B.  “What if I fail the project that’s due Wednesday?”

“It’s a slideshow project.  You love putting slideshows together.  How can you fail?”

“I don’t know…just…what if I do?”

“Why are you worried about failing something you haven’t turned in yet?  The power to succeed still rests with you.  If you need to change something, you can.  Just, you know, change it before Wednesday.”  I offered to look at the assignment and his progress tonight and offer constructive comments.  He looked relieved.

Our talk lasted probably thirty minutes, laying there in the dark while Victoria examined the website and chimed in about her own grades as the faint glow of the screen illuminated her sweet face.  As we talked, he shared the comments of one of his teachers – one that I am less than impressed with – and I began to see that we are dealing with a bully after all…

An adult bully.  Chastising the class for their performance, telling them that they “are not going to make it” if they have a C in her class, doing her best to shame them into performing at her standard. That approach infuriates me.  Especially since this is coming from the woman who assured us parents at Back-To-School Night that her classroom would be “an oasis and an escape” from the cruel world of middle school.  Sounds more like a two-hour torture chamber now.  If her goal is simply to leave her mark on the students, she is succeeding.  If her goal is to actually help them grow and improve, then I believe she is way off base.

So I did what any half-rational, fully-aggravated mom would do:  I told my son in no uncertain terms to not pay any attention to the crap she says.

Yes, I used those exact words.  I gave him my express permission to ignore his teacher’s criticism.  “You have to do the work she assigns, but you do not have to believe anything she says about your ability to succeed.  Children should be challenged at school, encouraged to perform, and held accountable.  They should NEVER be scared at school.  You should NEVER feel SHAMED into doing a good job.  You are dealing with an adult bully.  You cannot escape her this year, but you CAN dismiss her comments and choose NOT to believe her when she says you will fail. And you can prove her WRONG!!”   I also informed him that two, four, ten years from now, no one is going to give a rat’s half-apple what his 6^th-year-2^nd-quarter grades were.  So there.

But I am reminded how awesome is the power that a teacher holds.  Even more so than a peer.  This is someone who is inherently supposed to be a support for the student.  Not a crutch, but a genuine mentor.  Everyone has his or her own style.  I’m willing to bet that sarcasm and chastisement don’t affect positive outcomes as often as she might believe.  And I get genuinely peeved at having to undo mental damage caused by teachers. Fortunately, Aaron is mature enough to distinguish personality differences, so he understands when I explain that this teacher’s personality certainly doesn’t have to affect his own.  I just happen to know from personal experience…that’s a whole lot easier to say than to put into practice.

When Dom came to bed he and Aaron talked about the grades and Dom offered reassurance.  Then Dom tucked Aaron into his own bed.  And there, with Mason at his side for extra security, my ‘tween slept like a baby.

Broken System

Sit down, folks, ‘cause you’re not gonna believe this one.

We had a meeting yesterday for Aaron at his middle school – a regular meeting that we have twice a year with the instructional specialist and the Language Arts teacher for the purpose of evaluating Aaron as a student in the gifted program.  Most of you know Aaron – quiet, shy, controlled, witty, and book-smart to boot.  These meetings are always great for sharing with us all the ways in which they plan to challenge our son during the semester.

I perched myself on a metal stool for the meeting while Aaron, Dom, the teacher and the specialist seated themselves around the table with me.

And then I nearly fell off my stool when they suggested Aaron might have ADHD.

Yes, Aaron.

You heard me.

You might be, like me, wondering why in the world they would think this.  According to the teacher, he fidgets and daydreams.  Oh, and he was really disorganized at the beginning of the year, but has shown improvement in that area already.

Did I mention that he is in 6^th Grade?

My blood as well as Dom’s was boiling, so I did what my nature typically suggests:  I stiffened my jaw, plastered a huge of-course-I-give-a-crap-what-you’re-saying smile on my face, and leaned in to the conversation.

Keep in mind, now, they are not saying that he has ADHD.  Just that it’s something I need to pay attention to. As educational professionals they are not qualified to diagnose.

Yeah.

Now, if you are a teacher and you know me, my husband and my children, and you are reading this thinking, “You know, I can sort of see that…” then let me ask you this:  How many children do you “see” ADHD in on a daily basis?  Be honest, now.  50%?  75%?

My guess it’s closer to 90%.  I say this based on what I have heard other mothers say about ADHD and school issues, the sheer numbers of children that have been “diagnosed” with it, and now the fact that the local school system thinks 100% of my children have it.

I do NOT think I am a perfect mother with perfect children…don’t mistake my anger at the school system for denial of my children’s issues.  I wrestled that demon a year and a half ago.  And I kicked his ass.

When all this originally came up with Victoria in 2010, I had to lend some credence to it.  There were, after all, undeniable issues even if they as yet had no name.  She struggled with self-control, talking to her friends, and the random way-laying of anyone who validly pissed her off.  (She’s not one to take any crap.)  While I did not subscribe to the whole idea of ADHD at the time, I knew something had to give; there was indeed a problem that needed a solution.  So I processed the information accordingly, tried to keep an open mind about what this label meant for my child, and made decisions with her best interest at heart.

But yesterday…yesterday we were talking about a child who does not have those issues.  A child who has always been a self-starting, eager learner.  A child who is quiet, unassuming and self-controlled.

People!  What the hell?!!!!!!!

This solidifies my belief that our school system thinks every child needs a label.  Every action, every facial expression, every roll of the eye surely must indicate that there is an underlying cause – a problem to be addressed, perhaps even with medication.   Since this issue had quite obviously NEVER been brought up with regard to Aaron in six years of gifted classes, I asked if ADHD is something that tends to present itself in middle school (believing from my own research that it presents in earlier grades) and I was answered with a resounding, “OHHHH YES!” and the further explanation that the kids are overwhelmed in sixth grade with the changing of classes, lockers, tardy bells, seven-some-odd classes and a thousand additional schoolmates, and that a lot of the ADHD issues really come out then.  I was literally almost speechless.

Sounds to me like these kids are adjusting to a new, more hurried, more crowded environment.  There’s gonna be some stress.  STRESS does not equal ADHD.

I think that generalizing the label to cover every child who swings his feet at his desk or loses an assignment once in a while does an injustice to children (and families) who truly suffer from ADHD. I want statistics on our local school system.  No names, just percentages.  I’m curious to know how many children here “have” ADHD.  Because I think it is an overused label.  Until yesterday, that was only a suspicion.  Now it is a hardcore belief.

From Yogurt to Magazines…It’s a Win

I’m in a funk today.  Can’t seem to shake it.  Not with comfort food.  Not with drawstring pajama pants.  Not even with Starbucks.  The earth has tilted off its axis, folks, when caramel-flavored coffee can’t cheer me up.

Enter Stonyfield.  There in my inbox tonight sat a tiny little email from them asking me to take a survey on a new yogurt idea they are considering.  What else have I got to do tonight, right?  So I take the survey and humbly ask them at the end in the comments to please see about marketing more yogurt variety to my area.

And heck, since I’m on Stonyfield’s site anyway, I may as well enter all these myStonyfield Rewards codes I have saved up from yogurt cartons we have used.  So I log in and begin to enter my codes.  And that’s when I see a new reward…a very inexpensive reward (I mean, besides being free, it only cost me 10 of my 89 points!!!!)  A one year subscription to Organic Gardening.  Thank goodness I didn’t buy that in Aaron’s school fundraiser!!!!!

Now, let’s talk about my magazine issues.  No, not the actual paper issues, but the intense disdain I have for magazines in general.  My issues…as in, in my head issues.  Now you’re with me…

You’ve probably seen me mention that I enjoy and pay for two magazines: Southern Living and Health.  Let’s face it, Southern Living would practically have to start bad-mouthing Mom and apple pie for me to stop loving that mag.  Recipes, gardening advice, decorating tips that I will never follow in a million years but still love to drool over…that’s my quiet slice of heaven – with coffee – (when I’m not as moody as I am today.)  😉

I always liked Health, too.  So much so that I order gift subscriptions for my mom and best friend.  There are some great articles and good advice in each issue.

My problem with magazines is that I am increasingly aware of product advertising.  And, as a natural result, I am aware of all the harmful ingredients being marketed to unsuspecting women, not to mention the subliminal messages that we all have to look a certain way, with perfect skin, hair and nails – which can all be ours if we just buy these products.  Ugh.

When Aaron’s school kicked off their fundraiser earlier this month, I rolled my eyes.  Magazine sales.  Of all things. It took a week before I finally perused the selections in hopes of somehow showing my half-hearted support of this fundraiser.  I found two magazines that interested me:  Whole Living and Organic Gardening.  I figured these two had much smaller chances of aggravating me with product advertisements for things I consider unhealthy.  I chose Whole Living only because it was $2 cheaper than Organic Gardening.   And now, thanks to Stonyfield and their reward points system, I get a year of Organic Gardening for free.  How cool is that?!!!

These mags better have some cool stuff for me to share with you all, or their editors will hear from me.  We need more organic, healthy living, you’re-not-alone-in-the-world-trying-to-keep-your-family-healthy periodicals, ya know?  If I knew a single thing about the magazine business I’d start my own.  For now, I’ll just have to hope my favorite yogurt keeps steering me toward good information and new sources.

So Close and Yet So Far

The transition to middle school has proven to be easy so far for Aaron.  My self-directing, shy, quiet son is jumping head-first into the experience, fearlessly facing the challenges of Sixth Grade.  Dom and I are amazed and proud.

Victoria is not handling it quite so well.  You see, she is “left behind” at the elementary school, facing her first school year without her older brother on campus.

I didn’t realize how much comfort his presence brought to her.  Nor how much pain his absence would render.

For three days Victoria convinced us that she was worried about new teachers, fellow students, math, and recess.  (Who worries about recess?!!????  I know, right?!!)  I chalked it all up to new school year jitters and did my best to reassure her that everything was going to go swimmingly this year.  “It’s all up to you, Baby Girl!  YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!”

When yesterday passed without a phone call, Dom and I both breathed a sigh of relief that yes, she was indeed having a good time with her classmates and had forgotten all about her nervousness.  Last night held few surprises, save that she was still nervous about potential seating charts in two other classes.  Today would confirm the seating arrangements, and she wasn’t looking forward to it at all.  No biggie.  For over an hour last night we talked, we snuggled, she felt safe and loved.  She told me over and over again that I am “a good mama.”  I responded each time by telling her that she is a wonderful daughter.

This morning the drive to school was a bit melancholy.  Dom and I switched up in order to  share the experiences of each carpool line, so he drove Aaron today and I drove Victoria.  (I took Aaron yesterday to his first day of middle school…see here for the tear-stained details.)  I watched Vic in the backseat as I drove, her sad little face looking like she’d just lost her best friend.  She complained a few times that her tummy hurt, and she felt nauseous.  I told her it was just nerves and that once she got immersed in her school day, all that ickiness would go away.  As we pulled onto the school’s street, she told me she doesn’t want to be dropped off at the front any more (where she and Aaron used to leave the car together to walk up a long sidewalk to the front door).  I replied that I would be happy to pull through the side carpool line for her from now on.  She still looked ultra-pathetic.  Before exiting the car, she asked if she could call me if she started feeling worse.  Confident that things would start looking up in a matter of mere minutes for her, I said, “Oh, but of course you can!”

At 9:08 this morning, the school’s main number flashed across my ringing cell phone.  I had three people in my office at the time, and I think my exact words were, “Oh, s**t.”  I noticed my office cleared out rather quickly.  It was Vic on the other end of the line, saying she still felt sick, and would I please come get her.  Twenty seconds later, I was walking out the door.

I could tell by looking at her she wasn’t sick.  She was sad and pitiful, but seriously working all her angles to leave school.  I talked with her teacher, who was in full agreement with me that we had a simple case of nervous drama going on.  I took Vic to the car to chat with her in private, and after five minutes of sweet talking her and reassuring her, I nearly lost it.  “I have to go back to work, sweetie.  You are not sick enough to stay checked out of school.  Come clean with the story, or I’m shipping you back in there to cry into your teacher’s Kleenexes!!”

She threw her head back and sobbed, “All right!!! I’ll tell you the truth!!  I’m not worried about teachers or classmates.  I don’t care who I sit by.  My whole problem is I miss Aaron!!  I’ve never been at school without him, and now he’s gone to another school and I’m left here all alone, AND I MISS HIM SO-HO-HO MUH-HUH-HUHCCCHHH!!!!”

For a brief instant, she reminded me of Ed in Raising Arizona when she holds Nathan Jr. for the first time.  I tried really hard to focus on the present.

For the next hour, Vic explained how awful this was that Aaron wasn’t with her anymore, and how much she missed him and relied on him and now he was gone…(I had to remind her that he JUST went to middle school, not the Great Classroom in the Sky.)

“I don’t know how to be at school without him!!!!  He left me and I can’t do this alone.”

Long story short (too late!) I did my best to reassure her with little success.  So I took her back to school, crumpled Kleenexes and all, and the principal and I talked with her for just a few more minutes before they walked me to the door and walked each other on to Vic’s next class.

She will get through this adjustment in a week or so and be just fine, I’m sure.  (I hope…) As an only child myself, I have no frame of reference for this phenomenon.  But then again, maybe this is just another way for Vic to fulfill her purpose in my life…by giving me a different perspective.

At one point in our conversation she said, “I know everyone thinks I’m so strong, but I’m NOT!”  But I know differently.  She may feel weak right now, but she is incredibly strong.  I can still see her standing on that playground between Aaron and two strange boys who seemed to be picking on him.  She had her curly hair in a messy ponytail and her little three-year-old fists perched on her hips.  “LEAVE MY BROTHER ALONE!!!” was all she had to say.  Those 6-year-olds knew she meant business.  They may have thought they could intimidate Aaron, but they knew differently about her.  And so they left.  Maybe that’s the difference – they were supposed to leave at her command.  Aaron was supposed to stay?

And so I’m left wondering how in the world I’m going to deal with her emotions on top of my own when Aaron goes to high school, drives off on his first date, goes to college, leaves home…  Dom should start to brace himself now.  She and I will be absolute train wrecks.

Is this the down-side to having my children so close in age?  People often mistake them for twins.  At 19-months apart, they are mirror images and polar opposites.  They are best friends and prickliest thorns to each other.  They are night and day, but one seems to be made more complete by the other.    For years Victoria has light-sabered, legoed, and nerf-darted her way into Aaron’s play-time routines just for the sake of his company.  Maybe she figures her reward should be his undying promise to never be more than two rooms away.

Don’t Mind Me…I’m Just Nesting

Without a single clue as to what this morning would bring, I over-snoozed for 32 minutes before tossing contacts into my eyes and climbing into the shower.  While my hair over-conditioned I decided what to wear today.  By the time the Hubster stumbled in for his shower, I was mid-way through makeup with my hair air-drying.  He commented that he meant to wake up earlier, which prompted me to look at the clock.  Previously, I had fully intended to LEAVE THE HOUSE twelve minutes from the time the clock displayed at that moment.  I looked in the mirror.  No.  Freaking. Way.

So what do you think would be THE MOST NORMAL thing for a person to do upon realizing he/she is running about 10 minutes behind schedule on the kids’ last day of summer, with a forty-five minute drive ahead?  Why, clean the house and do laundry, OF COURSE!!!!!

Yeah, I know it was totally wrong for me to try to add tasks to an already delayed morning.  On any normal day, my reaction would have been to cease all preparing, yell for everyone to get in the car NOW, and frantically rummage for my keys as I sprint out of the kitchen, spilling coffee on the garage floor and cursing my snooze button.

Oh, but today was not going to be that day.  No, for reasons I could not previously explain, I have been doing things completely out of character…I’m cleaning things (the Hubster probably has not yet noticed, and will likely furrow his brow if he reads this, but yes, honey, it’s true…go look at the bathroom mirror and the shower tile).  I’m making my bed each day.  I’m making my bed.  Let me say again, I AM MAKING MY BED.  (This is something even my mother will tell you is simply not me.)  To make matters even more bizarre, I am LINT-ROLLING MABEL’S FUR off of my comforter.  EVERY. MORNING.  I must be sick.  Do I have fever?

This morning, half-dressed with wet hair, I decided to multi-task filling Mason and Mabel’s food bowls with doing a load of laundry.  SIMULTANEOUSLY.  The project was a success in that I only dropped about 15 pieces of kibble on the laundry room floor. One of the kibbles bounced under the dryer.  Bon Appétit, little dust-bunnies!

Next I made coffee (despite the fact that I knew it would be completely UN-enjoyable because of the burn on the roof of my mouth from last night’s pizza).  Can’t effectively “swoosh” a coffee pot in a sink full of dishes, so I decided to empty the sink.  And finding the dishwasher full of clean dishes, I began to remedy my obstacles one by one.

Eight minutes later, the coffee pot beeps as Dom is coming down the stairs to leave.  I decide he needs a cup…to-go!  (Awwww…yes, I can be sweet like that.  He likes to pretend it never happens.  Hmpff!)  I rifle through the cabinet for an appropriate travel mug, hoping to find one that will not result in coffee all down the front of that nice, white, dry-cleaned shirt he is wearing.  Cup handed, kisses swapped and he is out the door, totally distracted by my random act of kindness.  That’s when I realize I am STILL half-dressed with wet hair.  O. M. G., Lori!  Get it in gear!!

Finally “ready” fourteen minutes later I grabbed my purse and keys from the kitchen counter and noticed Dom’s phone sitting there.  Damn!  See??? He was so distracted by my coffee kindness that he forgot his phone.  Normally, I would call to let him know his phone is at home (as if he didn’t realize it already) and he would fetch it during lunch.  Today, I took it with me, then called him at his desk and offered to BRING THE PHONE TO HIM on my way to work, which was going to be a late arrival anyway, so what’s one more stop??

As I drove to deliver the phone, I thought of all the things that caused my tardiness.  Mostly, it was the cleaning and voluntarily taking care of other people’s business that drove (no pun intended) this hour-late ETA at my own office.  And even though I knew I was totally late and not accomplishing the tasks I am paid to accomplish in that hour, all I wanted to do was go back home and clean some more.

Me.  Wanting to clean.  Instead of doing anything else.  Somebody call a doctor.

And then it hit me.  I’m nesting!!!  Just like a pregnant woman with an insatiable need to sanitize her home before the baby arrives, I am preparing to birth a middle-schooler tomorrow.  And the fear of the unknown is making me manic.  So I focus on what I can control…my home.  (Which is presently out of control or there wouldn’t be so darn much to clean, no???)  I have shopping lists and to-do lists and make-this-list-next lists, most of which are focused on the first day of school.   The same first day that will come and go whether I am ready for it or not…whether any sink is clean or tub tile is scrubbed…whether laundry is folded or pencils are sharpened.  With no regard for my desires, it will happen tomorrow at 7:30 a.m., Central Standard Time.  I will drop Aaron into foreign middle school territory while Vic enjoys the familiar comfort of our elementary school for two more years.  I will need Kleenexes, for sure.  (Add that to my mom-preparedness list.)  I have to be sure I hold back the tears until after I have dropped Vic off, so as not to upset the delicate balance of her own first-day-jitters.  Oh dear.  So much to do to keep my mind off of tomorrow.  And so I distract myself by nesting.  I think I’ll go scrub their lunchboxes…again.

 

Day 312: Breaking News? Not Really…

Tags

news reports on child development, pesticides, studies

I literally JUST FINISHED watching an ABC World News report on the dangers of pesticides – known as organophosphates – and their relative impact on children’s IQ.  The main reference was a study done on pregnant women, and then the measured IQs of their children seven years later.

The results: common pesticides impart a significant decrease in child IQ.  The questions posed by the officials interviewed: why is it taking us so long to determine the dangers?

Why, indeed!?

Roger Dietert, an  immunotoxicology professor at Cornell University is quoted as saying, “It seems clear that our current methods and applications for identifying environmental risks posed to critical physiological systems of children are inadequate.”  It is my sincerest hope that his words will be heard.  Our current methods ARE inadequate – in every sense of the word. 

While I am really glad that items like this are making the news, I have to admit that I roused from a half-sleep to find myself pissed off at the “Wow…really?” attitude posed by everyone in the segment.  At the end, the reporter shows the viewers a tip – washing your vegetables with a brush before eating them.  And then he notes that they have listed on ABC’s website the fruits and vegetables you need to be most concerned about. 

I want to curse.  OUT LOUD. 

They could have done so much more with this story.  They could have tied in the benefits of organic produce.  They could have mentioned the Environmental Working Group as a resource for concerned parents.  They could have said, “Oh, by the way, THIS IS NOT REALLY NEW INFORMATION!!!”

But they didn’t do any of those things I would view as educational or beneficial. But geez louise, they ran the story anyway.  At least they did that.  I am frustrated, but I am still grateful.  Spread the word, would ya? If we start talking about this where other parents can hear us, maybe this won’t be considered “breaking news.”

Day 258: Another Mom Sounds Off

Last night I read an article by Sandra Steingraber – an ecologist, mother of two, and author of Raising Elijah (a book I plan to purchase, and the one from which the article was born).  The article, titled “Mind Games: How Toxic Chemicals Are Impairing Our Children’s Ability to Learn” appeared in the March/April 2011 issue of Orion Magazine.  Even though it is a rather lengthy article, it spoke volumes to me, and for the first time I felt connected to another mother on an almost spiritual level with regard to the chemicals bombarding our children.  Seriously.  It made me proud to know someone else out there was fighting the same battle with me and feeling the same feelings.  It made me want to storm Capitol Hill and demand change, like NOW.  It made me cry. 

And because I know too many of you will not read the article yourselves (although I ABSOLUTELY encourage it) I am going to hit some key points for you here, and generously sprinkle them with my own thoughts, as you know is my tendency. 

Sandra and her husband learned nearly a decade ago that the arsenic used in treating lumber for decks and play sets caused elevated risks of cancer in children who were around the treated wood.  Being cautious parents, and Sandra being a survivor of bladder cancer herself, the Steingrabers removed their child from the care facility where a pressure-treated wood play set was in use.    By the end of the second paragraph, I could tell they think like I do.  (I like them already!)  It would take another seven years for the EPA to ban arsenic in pressure treating wood used in residential settings, but they did not see fit to recall the play sets and decks that were already in use. 

See, this is what gets me fired up, and what I least understand about our priorities as a nation.  We think it’s okay to use chemicals in every aspect of our lives (as in the case of remarkably sturdy and virtually rot-resistant pressure treated wood).  But it’s not too long before we start to see glimpses of problems – small health problems with increasingly noticeable trends.  Well, hell’s bells…  We’re using a known poison in our product and seeing people handling the product, using the product in their homes and backyards, and on school playgrounds…and we start to wonder if the health problems might just be related.  So some independent people run tests and show a connection.  But pocket politicians or Corporate America – or whoever is steering this buggy – says, “Well, now wait a minute, fellas.  There is nothing conclusive about them-there tests.  We can’t stop using this revolutionary product just because a few people got sick.”  (By the way, in my mind Corporate America is personified as a tall, cigar-smoking, Southern CEO who speaks in a Jock Ewing vernacular and uses phrases like “Girl Friday” and “womenfolk” with an air of disdain. But that’s just me…)

Arsenic is a carcinogen and neurotoxicant that impairs “the growth of the brain in ways that interfere with learning.”  The article also cites that,

Current laws do not require the systematic screening of chemicals for their ability to cause brain damage or alter the pathways of brain growth, and only about 20 percent of the three thousand chemicals produced in high volume in the United States have been tested for developmental toxicity of any kind.”

Only 20% of 3,000?  That’s 600 chemicals that have been tested to see if they have the ability to impair the development (and subsequent learning ability) of our children.  That means 2,400 high-volume chemicals have not even been tested.  But we are using them.  We are touching them.  We are even eating them.  These untested chemicals are controlling cellular function in our bodies and we just sit around and wonder why we have more illnesses than our grandparents had.  We shake our heads at the increasing number of cancer diagnoses.  We marvel at the statistics of children with autism and ADHD.  But we barely test our chemicals.  Instead, we use any and everything until enough bad stuff happens that we finally test, and while we’re waiting on all the tests and trials and reports to be run, we still inundate our society with the chemical in question. Then one day, there is undeniable proof that the chemical actually causes some of the issues we are dealing with.  Oh, no.  What now???? Oh, well….we’ll just ban it from future use, or worse, keep it in production but limit what it can be used for.  Forget what has already been created with it.  Our bad, right?  Let’s just move forward and hope no one notices. 

Good grief, we operate like a hit-and-run accident.  Sandra’s article further points out,

Forty years before it was removed from paint, pediatricians had enough evidence of lead’s ability to maim children’s brains — catastrophically and irreversibly— to warrant discussion in a medical textbook.”

So what’s the cost?  I mean, you know…besides the miscarriages and the cancers and the learning struggles and the tears???  Keep reading.

As Sandra continues the article, she states that,

Child neurodevelopmental disorders…leave economic tracks behind. At $77.3 billion per school year, special educational services, according to the most recent accounting, consume 22 percent of U.S. school spending…ADHD now affects nearly one in every ten children between the ages of four and seventeen. An estimated 5.4 million children are believed to suffer from ADHD…Of these, 2.7 million—nearly 5 percent of all U.S. children—are on medication to control it.” (All italics mine). 

Not only does my radar go haywire when I hear statistics on ADHD, but I have long been interested in the autism spectrum disorders because of my nephew, Zachary.  Just as Zach struggles to relate to us, we struggle to understand how he views the world.  My problems are miniscule compared to the long road my brother- and sister-in-law have travelled.  We know stats on ADHD and autism as well as other learning disorders have increased in recent years.  Today, one in every 110 eight-year olds (Vic’s class) is diagnosed with autism.  If you narrow the selection to just boys, you’re looking at one in every 70.

And yet we allow chemicals in our businesses, homes, schools and foods without even understanding their impact on our health.  This article has made me realize this is about more than just the choices we make as individuals. This is bigger than my desire for organic tomatoes and spinach.  This inflates my desire to encompass our earth in change for the better.  And I feel as long as there is money to be made from the dangers we do not know, we will forever struggle.  We will continue to have learning disabilities and illness.  And we will not see why. 

Sandra goes on to address pesticides and their undeniable impact on our children.  And she makes an excellent point:  that when you use a substance that is intended to fry the neurological system of a typical farm or garden pest, you have to be prepared for the neurological systems of the people who eat foods sprayed with the substance to be fried as well, even if on a smaller scale.  But really, is it enough to just know the dangers are out there?  I completely identified with her as I read,

This sort of public health approach — surround kids with brain poisons and enlist mothers and fathers to serve as security detail—is surely as failure-prone with pesticides as it was with lead paint… Following all the popular advice, I do feed my children organic food…(but) I cannot verify the agricultural origin of every food item served at every birthday party, summer camp, sleepover… I can’t ensure that every backyard soccer field, every patch of lawn…are free of organophosphates… I am a conscientious parent. I am not a HEPA filter.”

If my gratitude for Sandra Steingraber’s article is not profoundly evident, let me now offer my sincerest thanks for her work and information, and the heart that she so generously poured into getting the message across to us.