I was going to whine, but then I learned of a friend with real problems

I had intended to write today about my desire to reject western medicine, much like my husband.  My cocktail of ibuprofen, Flonase and Tamiflu have left my clogged ears untouched, incited dizziness and made me vomit.  I'm done.  No more drugs.  I'm going with lots of fluids, good food and rest.  That was, until I got some news.  My daughter came home today with a note that her teacher's husband passed away this morning.  This man was younger than I am and leaves behind three children between the ages of 7-years-old and 6-months-old.  Suddenly my "problems" seem really small.

I've already cried about this numerous times.  This was a wonderful family, filled with wonderful people doing wonderful things.  Smart, funny, sweet...I have nothing bad to say.  And let's face it.  Good teachers become part of your family.  They're part of the dinner conversation and your partner in parenting. 

The thoughts running through my head are sobering.  You always plan for tomorrow, next week, two years from now and someday.  But we're never guaranteed it will every come.  I've spent a lot of time telling my children "just a minute" or "after I send this email."  The television served as a babysitter while I worked.  On weekends, they spend hours with each other, perfectly entertained - without me.  I sometimes go long periods of time without devoting my full attention to my husband.  I often go a week without spending a morning with my mother.  I haven't seen my brothers in months.  It's easy to get through any of these given days because I assume there will be an opportunity later.  I'm sure my friend thought there'd be another morning, last night. 

I realize it's not healthy to fear the end.  And it's not practical to live each day to its fullest - folks have to work, do laundry and whatever else.  But the sentiment isn't lost.  At all times, cherish the ones you love.  Tell them often.  Do it in person as much as possible.  In the meantime, send positive thoughts to this family.  I can't imagine what their day has been like.  My heart is breaking for them.

Damn you, Girl Scout cookies!

Let me be the first to say that I love the Girl Scout organization and I couldn't be happier that my girls are involved.  I was just writing a friend the other day, talking about how it's cool to see them so empowered.  What I detest, though, is being required to sell stuff to support our involvement.  This isn't exclusive to Girl Scouts - I hate it in any form.  Let me tell you why.

1.  Since my daughters are 7 and 6, it's pretty much MY project.  I made the calls, sent the emails and posted on Facebook.

2.  It opens me to being willing to buy crap from my friends' kids when they are in fundraising mode.  I don't have tons of extra money and I certainly do not need more crap in any form.

3.  We have a small social/family circle to hit up for sales - most of which are in Girl Scouts.

4.  For every box of cookies we sell, the troop gets $0.40.  My mother-in-law gave the troop a $20 donation since she doesn't live locally and didn't really want cookies, yet wants to support her granddaughters.  This is the equivalent of selling 500 boxes of cookies.  Yet, since we only technically sold a total of 48 boxes between my two girls, they are not eligible for any type of reward.  That begins at 50 boxes.  :-( 

5.  And last, I love the cookies.  I can't be trusted with them.  And to even up the total number of boxes sold, I ended up buying seven.  I can feel my jean size growing already. 

Damn you, Girl Scout cookies!  You're evil.  And delicious.

The meaning of lice...

I'm a pretty tolerant and rational person.  Truly I am.  I'm not a fan of snakes, but can understand the purpose they serve in the ecosystems of the world.  Even upon nearly stepping on one while hiking recently, I quickly came down from the urge to scream with a "it's more afraid of me than I am of him."  I'm chill like that.  But this past week has left me very frustrated and angry as I try to figure out the meaning of lice - again.

I have a kindergartener.  Need I say more?  We've been through this before - when my older daughter was in kindergarten, imagine that.  I don't know what it is about these kids, but they're a natural breeding ground for these bloodsucking, incredibly annoying little creatures.  And sadly, my younger daughter's hair is like lice paradise.  It's thick, dense and clean.  Well technically it's currently slathered in olive oil, awaiting her millionth comb-out of the week.  But it's typically clean.

What purpose does lice serve?  I'm seriously asking.  And how does it survive?  Everyone I've ever heard of getting it (and believe me - about 70% of the people I've entrusted our creepy, crawly secret too have divulged similar experiences) work like crazy to eradicate it.  So how does the species survive?  My children's heads are scraped clean of the bugs and their eggs.  So if everyone follows suit, how do they keep showing up in kindergarten? 

When my older daughter got it, I freaked out.  Like screamed and jumped out of my chair exclaiming, "Oh my God she's got LICE!"  She immediately started to cry.  My husband was out the door on his way to Walgreens to get something, anything, within two minutes.  I was on the phone with a close friend who is a doctor (and happened to be enjoying his Florida vacation at the time of my early morning, Sunday call) within five.  We used a pesticide shampoo...and that was a terrible experience.

The bugs, basically, jump for their lives.  They did not die.  The shampoo makes your child's hair extremely dry and the hours of combing becomes torture.  It smells terrible.  And seriously - does anyone think it's a good idea to marinate your child's head in poison? 

What has worked for us, as I mentioned, is olive oil.  It slicks up the bugs and desticks the eggs.  We leave it in for hours - if not overnight.  A shower cap contains any grease on furniture or bedding.  When you wash it out, use a tiny bit of dish soap in your shampoo.  Then the rest you'll find when googling is true.  It's all about combing, combing, combing and laundry, laundry, laundry.  It's a major pain in the butt, but these things are necessary to get you through your licesis (yep - a lice crisis). 

Just for fun - my older daughter was diagnosed with the flu on Thursday and I'm still recovering from an ear/sinus infection.  I'd resort to alcohol but I'm on too many medications.  Chocolate will have to do.

I believe I found my own sparkly shoes - literally

I couldn't resist sharing this.  For a mere $3000, Christian Louboutin can hook me up with a pair of sparkly shoes that will rival my daughter's - just with a few extra zeros tacked on to the price!  Now if only I could rock them with jammies like my little one.

This one is for all of those moms in the drop-off line wearing PJs!

Have you heard of the greatest new product since sour gummy peaches?  Why it is the pajama jean, of course!  I don't mind comping them the link because they're just too amazing.  Jeans - made out of pajama material.  Is she on her way to the market or did she just roll out of bed?  No one knows! 

I can't help but to feel like they were designed for all of those moms I see in the school drop-off line, you know who you are, who walk up to the school front wearing pajama pants and slippers.  Ladies, I, too am rushed in the morning.  But it's just not that hard to toss on a pair of jogging or yoga pants and a t-shirt before hopping into the car.  It takes me just as long to slip on sneakers or sandals as it would to get slippers on my feet.

Here are the reasons why I'm strict on my you-must-be-dressed-when-you-take-your-child-to-school-policy. 

• Once, while getting her backpack, my little one scraped her finger and if I had been in pajamas, I would have had to push her out the door of the car, crying.  Due to my jeans and t-shirt, I was able to walk her into class without much shame. 


• I've seen more than one fender bender in this line, which require a conversation with another mom outside of your car.


• The principal stands out at the line.  There's just something my child's educational leader doesn't need to know about me, including that I have PJ bottoms with penguins on them.


• Your kid is quite possibly mortified.

So ladies, do everyone a favor.  If pulling on real pants is too much?  Go ahead and sleep in these babies.  I hear they're comfy.  :-p

Another season of the Bachelor - insert snarky comment here

I admit that I'm addicted to bad reality TV.  If there's a Real Housewives of Anywhere marathon on Bravo on any given Saturday, there goes my weekend.  It's a guilty pleasure that I don't share with many.  If they ask how I know about these crappy shows, I tell them "they did a piece on them on NPR."  Here, though, I will let you into my world of reality show analysis without shame and mucho snark.

I was one of those girls that swooned over the Bachelor and Bachelorette, swept up in fantasy dates in a band camp setting.  Six weeks to find your soul mate, sounds realistic to me.  Right?  Well it's getting bad and even I can't go along with it.

We have Brad Womack back this season.  Unlike most women in America, who were evidently outraged, I never held it against him that he didn't choose anyone. Deanna was immature and bitchy.  The other chic was adorable, but not much more.  If he didn't feel it, he didn't feel it.  I would sure hate to feel pressured into a proposal and am just the type of gal who would probably say, "no, but thanks.  Sorry it didn't work out."  But according to the first girl out of the limo who smacked him, my opinion belongs to the minority.

Among the women to choose from we have some model chic who has fangs and thinks she's a vampire.  Hey, I loved the Twilight series too, though I am more of a werewolf girl.  I, too, can't wait for Breaking Dawn Part 1.  But come on.  She knew she had ridden the train as far as it would take her when she walked out of a rose ceremony today because she wasn't into it.  I believe it was because he wasn't swept up in her attempts at mystery and she wasn't getting enough camera time.

There's a psycho named Michelle who is that girl who is determined to knock the competition out.  Oh no wait...find love.  Yeah, that's it.  She's trying to find love.  Not win. 

Then there's a gal named Emily.  Now Emily is someone everyone can get behind.  She's very pretty, southern, has a daughter and suffered a genuine tragedy.  What kills me about Emily, though, is her age.  She's 24 and he's 37.  Bleah.  As a woman in my thirties, that's offensive.  I'm a modern girl.  I believe in love with any age gap.  But come on.  The oldest gal cast was 32.  What's the matter ABC?  Over 35=unattractive?  Puhlease. 

We'll explore this further, but the type of person that seeks out a reality TV role is different that those of my generation.  Unless you're in some sort of skills competition (Top Chef, Project Runway, American Idol) you're an attention whore.  Love ya, mean it, but you are.  And good luck working that out in therapy.

Yet still...I watch.  Well rather I DVR.  I can't cope with all of those commercials!

What are your sparkly shoes?

Last week I headed into town to go to the dreaded DMV.  Much to my surprise and delight, it was a process that took about 20 minutes and the gal helping me couldn't have been nicer.  When I got back to my car, I realized that my girls' preschool had just let out and I was only two blocks away.  I rushed over there to say hello.  No joke, when I pulled into the parking lot, I felt like I was home.  That's just the old sappy mom in me.

While visiting, one of my best friends, who happens to be an assistant teacher there, mentioned that she was going to Target to check out their clearance toys.  I rarely get to see her and jumped at the opportunity to spend some impromptu time together.

While I struck out in the toy department, I did find a few pairs of sparkly shoes.  They had all kinds of colors - silver, gold, black, multi-color purple, and Wizard of Oz red.  My older daughter had an old pair of red ones from a Dorothy costume a few years back.  They are tragically small on her, yet she shoves her little toes nevertheless.  At $3 a pair, how could I resist?  The big one got red ones (which ended up being too small and were replaced with multi-color purple).  The little one got a silver pair.

Every day since, the little one comes home, takes off her regular shoes and slips into her silver shoes.  Every morning upon waking, she puts them on.  They are the first thing on her mind.  The thing she can't wait to come home too.  The thing that makes her feel like a million bucks whether she's wearing pajamas or a dress.  And so I'm left wondering, where are my sparkly shoes?  Don't you wish there was a miracle product for adults?  Or is it that my expectations for any given product are too high?  While I'd like to think a nice chunky diamond would go well with flannel PJs and cocktail dress, my budget doesn't allow me to test that theory.  Oh well...I'm glad $3 did the trick for my gals.  It's totally typical.  I could spend a ton of money on Stride Rite shoes and they refuse to wear them.  Now I have cheapo shoes and they're begging to wear them everywhere!