Our August started out horribly. We discovered the girls had lice while sitting in church one Sunday morning, and as it slowly dawned on me that Emma didn't in fact walk into a swarm of fleas on her way into church, I quickly whisked her out of church, with my faithful side kick Violet in tow. As I sat with them in a back room used for choir rehearsals, I became more and more frantic as I searched through Emma's hair like a madwoman. Once I knew without a doubt that we were in fact dealing with lice, I turned to pick up Violet and realized she was standing on a chair in a puddle of what could only be her own urine. To think a day that had started out so smoothly, so together - after all we had arrived to church 15 minutes early and 20 minutes earlier than our usual entrance time, could take such a turn so very fast while in a house of GOD really left me shaking my fist towards the heavens. I turned to Violet and Emma and told them in no uncertain terms "Do NOT move a muscle" and I went into the congregation alone to get Will and Lucy. I then took all three girls out of church while Will took on the task of cleaning up the puddle that was now dripping off of the chair and onto the floor. Once in the car, I remembered some friends who had dealt with the nightmare of lice earlier in the year and so I reached out to them for advice and support. One of my friends dropped everything and brought her supplies to begin the painstakingly slow process of eradicating lice from my children and my house. She stayed with us for hours on our front porch, combing through our hair and offering stories and love to keep our spirits up. I mentioned to her that I was frustrated that God would allow this to happen - and to discover it in church no less - when He knows I am already borderline crazy from my lack of sleep with Violet. It was then that she pointed out that perhaps BECAUSE we discovered we had lice in God's House, He was trying to reassure me that yes, bad things will happen, but He is right there with me, through it all. After thinking about it for a while, I believe that God sent my friend as my angel of hope that day, and I will be forever grateful for her generosity and love.
Lice may very well be the straw that broke the camels back though and sent me straight to burned out crazy town. We had a heck of a time getting rid of the lice - they only stayed on Violet's head for a day, Emma's for two weeks but Lucy had them for three weeks. We were seriously considering buzzing her hair off. Not to mention that Lucy and I mixed like oil and water during the comb through process that I did every single day for my own peace of mind. It took hours each day to go through every family member's head and I although all of the sources I read said that you didn't need to search every day, my mind could not rest unless I knew exactly what I was dealing with. Lucy screamed "OW" every time I ran the comb through her hair and it was pure torture for both of us. And don't even get me started on the amount of laundry it caused us. Laundry detergent that normally would last us three months, was used up in the three weeks we dealt with the pesky parasites. Add to that, Violet regressing on potty training since Will went back to work, and I have done so. much. laundry. So, when we discovered Charlie had fleas two days after we discovered the kids had lice (not related, just bad luck although my mom is convinced fleas and lice are the same thing) I took the option of just throwing out any cloth bedding he had. Poor kitty still doesn't have any bedding, but as the weather is still warm, I am going to wait to give him any blankets until it gets cooler again - and the risk of fleas is gone.
Not long after we had recovered from lice, Will text me early in the morning to let me know that he was okay, but he was pretty sure his car was totaled. This is not the way I would prefer to wake up in the morning, but the main focus for me was that he was okay. It was raining that morning, and he had been sandwiched between two cars. The car ended up being totaled out, which was a bummer because it was the nicer car that we had. BUT, chances are pretty high that if our other car was totaled out, the kids would have been in it and who knows if they would have been okay. It is what it is, and Will is okay and being taken care of by our chiropractor for low back and neck pain. We ended up finding a new to us car the very day Will totaled out his car and it has been a long time coming for us. It is bigger, has better air conditioning for Violet (additional air vents in the back seats) and a much bigger trunk for all of our bee equipment and the accessories that come with having three kids. We had enjoyed many years of having no car payments, but had also planned ahead for the day when one of our cars either died or was totaled out and so it was as smooth as a transition as a car accident can be. Plus, since Will was okay (and didn't have lice) nothing else really matters.
We spent a lot of time at home this past month which was mostly because of a lice-forced quarantine. This made it even more depressing to be in our yard without our chickens and a hostile neighbor still using passive aggressive ways to show us that he is still angry with us. He called the city on us because we didn't give in to his threat to move our chicken coop. Fortunately we had already been to the city the day our neighbor tore down our fence and let our chickens loose to the neighborhood, and so when the city ordinance guy came out, he recognized me and already knew of the situation. He pretty much told us that as long as our "play house" was moved five feet off of our property lines that we would be fine. He also encouraged me to continue pursuing the city council to change the ordinance about chickens so that we could get our chickens back. I am grateful that we had taken the proper steps but to have our neighbor continue to yell at us and refuse to have a conversation is no way to live in a place that should be a safe haven from the rest of the world.
I do feel like we were robbed of our summer, a time of year that we really look forward to with Will's crazy school year schedule. We spent more time indoors than usual to avoid the hostility of our neighbor and also because it was just too hot outside most days. Below are pictures in clockwise order from top left of us hanging out at home: Will goofing around with Emma, Lucy learning how to clean the bathrooms, Lucy learning how to text from Will's phone to mine, snack time, and the kids playing with play doh so I could get some computer work done in relative peace.
A silver lining to lice is that we spent so much time on our front porch - mainly because it is more private than our backyard, and also because I didn't want to pick for lice in the house in case one fell off a head and landed on my furniture. Another silver lining from our lice experience is it took our mind off of our chicken troubles.
We went for bike rides after the quarantine period was up on the bike helmets, harvested from our garden and even had people share some of their garden harvest with us. In clockwise order from the top left below: a garbage can filled with weeds going out to the compost but which would have normally been consumed by our chickens and made into compost ten times faster, peaches from our tree, Lucy with a peach, zucchini from a coworker of Will's which really is just a cruel hand off and a reason why we never grown our own zucchini, Will picking peaches, Emma with a lice treatment on her hair while holding peaches, and a flashback photo of Emma at age two with our first peach harvest.
We enjoyed lots of water play and noticed that Violet is starting to realize what to do when she starts to overheat. In clockwise order from top left below: Violet sitting in the water table to cool off, playing with water and color tablets at the picnic table, more color mixing, a cute picture when I realized my baby girls were lined up in size order with their adorable feet, and Emma and Violet enjoying the sprinkler and the water table at the same time.
Violet LOVES water play, and so if we were outside, she demanded the sprinkler, the water table or the slip and slide at all times. We really enjoy our slip and slide and the girls spend hours slipping and sliding until their lips are blue and their butts are bruised.
When we were finally able to venture back out into public, we went all out. We hit a food truck rally for dinner one night, went to the dentist...
...started back up with swim lessons...
...attended library events...
...and enjoyed a surprise garden of pollinator friendly plants next to the library. We also went to the Bee Festival an hour or so from our house and spent the night there too.
I hosted a booth at a Bee Festival at Belle Isle in Detroit and was helped by a friend who was an awesome salesperson. We were both pretty giddy that day, enjoying a kid-free Saturday together. Our math posters have been selling online as well as my bee signs and decals so we had many trips to the post office this past month too. In fact, as I read Will's text that our car was in fact totaled out, my phone dinged to let me know we had made an online sale. It was like God was trying remind me that everything was going to be okay.
...fake mustaches and laughter...lots of laughter...
We ended the summer with a trip to a local water park and wondered why we waited years to go, despite our friends inviting us multiple times every summer. Next year we promise to go often and I truly, truly hope that next summer will be easier on us than this past summer was.
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