This one reminds me of a friend’s post and this quote.
“I never have taken a picture I’ve intended. They’re always better or worse.” – Diane Arbus
This is one of my favorite happy accidents.
Category Archives: Baby Girl
Lice. Ew.
I seem to be on an insect-related writing spree. First mosquitoes, now lice, and I have a special treat coming up for you, a nearly complete post about giant water beetles!
Of course, this is all really my love of bug-eating bats shining through. After my last bat-related post, Marilyn, sent me a story about Mexican Free-tailed Bats carrying bombs into Japanese cities during WWII. It makes perfect sense. They can carry weight, they fly at night, they hide in dark, obscure corners, and then… boom. A dentist came up with the idea and sent a letter to the White House. Can you imagine? Dear Mr. President…
I’m getting off track. The insect of the day is lice! They’re transferred from head to head contact and there’s an estimated 6-12 million infestations every year mostly in children between the ages of 3 and 12. Children are most commonly treated with Rid or Nix. These shampoos include insecticides that kill the bugs and their eggs. Because the lice are becoming resistant to these treatments, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending each infested child be treated with the insecticide three times.
Of course these shampoos contain toxic chemicals that kill the bugs and are absorbed through the skin. At high doses they can cause short-term side effects like nausea and vomiting and long-term side effects like hormone disruption and cancer.
So, what to do…
- Depending on where you live, you can hire someone to come take care of it for you. She uses non-toxic products and sells them online too.
- Of course there’s manual removal with a lice comb and my favorite hair blog had a few other suggestions. Be sure to read through the comments. One person recommends tea tree oil and another recommends rinsing with Listerine.
- One friend sent a link to this product: www.fairytaleshaircare.com Has anyone tried it?
- This Wall Street Journal article suggests rubbing Cetaphil skin lotion into the hair and letting it dry in an effort to suffocate the bugs before washing them out.
I have not yet experienced the joy of a lice infestation as a parent. I hear that lice is less common in children with African American, tightly-coiled hair. I’m hanging on to that hope.
Any of you have any experience to share? Any tricks that work?
She Can Be Cute Too
For the five nights my sister’s family stayed with my parents on the island, Paul, Josie and I packed up our contributions to dinner and headed to their house (aka: the mother ship) at cocktail hour. The weather was beautiful and as the sun stretched long over the horizon we clustered around my parents’ glass table and ate our dinners family style.
The day the cousins left we planned to have a quiet dinner at home. While I cooked, Josie messed around in the carport. We’d just returned from swimming in the lake and her inflatable boat was in the center of the flagstone. I looked out and she’d climbed inside. I asked where she was going and she replied that she was going to Bumpa’s (Grandpa’s) house. OK, have a nice time (is she really playing by herself? Awesome.)
A few minutes later I peek out the door again and she isn’t there. I walk to the other side of the house toward the beach. She isn’t there. I walk around the side of the house quietly, afraid I will disturb the rare, elusive, self-occupied toddler (I didn’t know it existed!). Finally, I see her walking up our long, steep dirt driveway toward the road with her inflatable boat raised over her head. This is, of course, the same driveway that she cannot possibly walk all the way up when her parents are around to carry her. But here she is walking and holding a boat over her head. Not only is she occupied but she’s wearing herself out. It’s like Christmas over here. Sure, she’s headed toward the road but it’ll take her a while to get there and there aren’t many cars and they don’t drive very fast and, well, she’s playing by herself. Needless to say, I don’t want to break the spell.
A few minutes later when I can no longer see her I hoof it up to the end of the driveway. I expect to find her resting somewhere along the way, distracted by a bug on a leaf or maybe playing next to the road but there she is sitting in her boat right in the middle of the road. Oh stop looking at me that way, there wasn’t a car in sight and if there had been, it would have driven really slowly and have I mentioned that she was playing by herself?
Anyhoo, Josie tells me she’s going to Bumpa’s house. I explain to her that if a car comes, I’m concerned the driver won’t be able to see her down here in this boat. When she gets up three plastic plates, two knives, a plastic frying pan, and a plastic piece of lettuce clatter to the pavement. While I move the boat to the side of the road, she starts walking. It’s about a half mile to Bumpa’s house and I’m pretty sure if I let her she would have made it fine without getting lost. Finally, concerned that the non-plastic dinner is burning on the stove, I talk her into returning to the house to find Daddy. Maybe after dinner Paul will carry her up the driveway, because she can’t possibly make it to the top herself, and we’ll all walk over to Bumpa’s house.
Meow
Heaven help us.
The other day, Josie, Norah and I went for a walk. Josie wants to hold Norah’s leash and walk in the middle of the road. I bring her back to the side. Then again. I tell her she can walk on the side of the road or she can ride in the stroller. She walks down the middle of the road. I bring her back to the side. Again. I say it’s time for the stroller. She slips from my hand and runs up the hill into someone’s yard yelling nonononono! I can’t go after her. If I do she will sprint away and she’s too fast. With that much of a lead, I won’t be able to catch her. Finally, I pretend I’m leaving (the only thing that ever works) and she starts sobbing, I put her in the stroller and head for home.
My adrenalin is pumping mad as I push that damn stroller up the hill. A neighbor I have never met comes out of her house as we pass her deck. She has a pan lid in one hand and a spoon in the other. Oh, she says looking surprised to see a screaming red-faced toddler and her glaring red-faced mother. Oh, she says again, I thought the cats were fighting outside and I was going to break them up.
That’s right, me and my girl, like two cats. That’s how we are some days.
Mosquitoes (and Bats!)
Begging for a bat house
The garden is doing well (thanks for asking), so well in fact, that we are awash in broccoli. If anyone comes within 10 feet of the house, I force them to take a crown. I pretty much throw broccoli at passersby. It’s like reverse Halloween over here. I’ve given away so much broccoli that Josie has decided that along with happy birthday, enjoy your broccoli is a standard greeting. She’s also in a no-clothes phase of life so our little naked wood nymph has been running around the yard yelling, enjoy your broccoli! to anyone who will listen (ie: the dog).
And this little anecdote has nothing to do with what I really want to write about. Total change of subject. Are you ready?
Mosquitoes! The hysterical’s guide to mosquito repellant (kind of). We don’t have much of a problem here in the northwest with bugs so I’m really not qualified to comment but, as usual that won’t stop me. I came across an interesting article that says wind, even a small amount from a house fan, is an effective deterrent. Mosquitoes are attracted to the carbon dioxide we exhale, sweat, lactic acid and body heat. The fan works not just because it makes it hard for the lil’ buggers to land, but because it disperses our breath and cools us down. So get an extension cord and move that fan outside.
Also bats! I love bats. Really. I’m fascinated by them and collect odd bat facts. I don’t know why. I keep thinking I will write something that has to do with bats someday but it never happens. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is my big bat story. Did you know that the Brazilian Free-tailed bat consumes 200-600 insects per night? And, the bats of Texas consume 6-18,000 metric tons of insects each year. You’re welcome for that. Anyway, buy them a house. (You can even buy one that looks like a castle.) Paint it black. Maybe it would be tough to carry with you when you go hiking but it could help for those nights on the back deck.
Okay, seriously, this is probably no help at all. It’s definitely no help for those of you who want to leave your yard. Any of you peeps living in mosquito-laden lands have suggestions on keeping them away without harming your children or the planet?
The Reward
Ah, vacation… It’s not an easy thing to get a family, especially one with a young child, out of town. There’s so much preparation. There’s the food planning, the grocery shopping, the packing (you have to make sure you have cute yet practical clothes for all weather conditions, the good sunscreen, the sun hat, and for goodness sake don’t forget Baby Chloe and Monkey).
Then there’s the drive and the screaming when the girl decides she’s bored and had enough. There’s the running around at the rest stop. There’s the car snacking and the tears when you run out of ‘ting cheese (string cheese). Then there’s loading everything onto the boat, bribing the child into the life vest, leashing the dog and trying to keep her from pulling you into the water as you walk down the dock. There’s the boat ride where you’re trying to keep the kid awake because you know if she drifts off the real nap will not happen. There’s the unloading of the boat and the loading of another car and the driving to the house.
Once you get there, there’s putting the girl to bed for her nap and unloading the cooler and the totes full of groceries and removing sheets from furniture and opening blinds. By then it’s pretty much time to start dinner. There’s the cutting, the chopping, the marinating. There’s packing up dinner fixings and the vitamins and the sippy cups of milk and going to the parent’s house. There’s the greeting of the nieces and the combining of chopped items and marinated meats and there’s kids and dogs and more kids everywhere, running, there’s the running, then there’s the crashing and the crying, and the requisite stealing of toys.
Then, finally, it’s cocktail hour. There’s the pouring of beverages and the consumption of guacamole. There’s the sun as it begins its descent, there are hummingbirds at the feeder, there’s the dying wind and the still water and the one ferry boat passing by the one fishing boat tied to one buoy. There’s a set table and kids around it (or close enough) and dogs sprawled out sleeping in the sun and there’s this family and this gin and tonic and grilled ribs and salad. There’s the sun warming the back of your neck. There’s this perfect moment when everything good and worthy comes together and you sit with your people in the most beautiful place you know and exhale.
I hope you’re all finding lots of these moments this summer.
Something You Should Know About Us
Maybe this will be one of those moments.
When we were little my sister and I liked to eat chapstick – any flavor or even plain would do but my favorite was orange. There was something about the smell that I loved so much. If we were in the mood for nighttime snack, we’d sneak stealth-like into my parent’s bathroom and rummage around in the bottom drawer until we came up with a tube of whatever we could find.
We’d talk in what we thought were whispers, while we snacked like little chipmunks. I don’t know how old we were, but I do know my sister (who is two years older than me) was old enough to feel guilty. As a penance she smothered Dad’s toothbrush, we assumed the balm was Dad’s because Mom used lipstick, with toothpaste and left it, bristles up, next to the sink. Such a good helper.
One morning Dad said something like, “you guys can eat all the chapstick you want but please don’t put toothpaste on my toothbrush.” Apparently it dried and hardened and in the morning he had to chisel it off. Sorry Dad. Oh and, sorry Mom for eating your chapstick.
The other night while getting into bed I notice red streaks that look like blood on a crinkled tissue stuffed into the top of the Kleenex box. I pull it out to throw it away and smell something sweet. That’s not blood. I smell again. Definitely not blood. In my night stand drawer, you guessed it, the lid is off and the balm has been scraped out with a tiny finger. The Dr Pepper Lip Smackers has been compromised.
Don’t even start with me about all the chemicals Lip Smackers. I should have thrown Dr Pepper away long ago, replaced it with my 100% organic food-grade quality (perfect for eating) premium shea butter, encased in a BPA and phthalate free tube, but it’s a relic from my past. It was hard to let go.
That’s all beside the point. Suddenly, I realized we’re here: she’s reaching the age where tangible memory begins. It’s possible she’ll remember some of these days, some moments, not as a general feeling, a haze of babyness, but as specific moments that have, I don’t know, quotation marks. Maybe this isn’t exactly what happened, maybe I haven’t remembered Dad’s words correctly but that’s the way memory works. What’s important here is not the accuracy but the solidity.
On one hand, this is terrifying. What about all my mistakes, the times I get frustrated, I do the wrong thing? She’s watching, remembering, cataloguing, probably with the dewey decimal system, saving all these moments for her teenage years.
But this new phase of tangible memory is also a relief because here we are, mother and daughter (both with an appetite for lip balm), making it though our days and our nights. Working it out. We’ve made it this far and hopefully, if our luck continues, we’ll have a lot more time together, good and bad, to remember.
Sunscreens
Stop with the hormone disruptors, Mom. Sheesh!
Let me first apologize for being SO late on this. For heaven’s sake it’s mid-June and I still haven’t written anything about sunscreens. It’s hard to feel a sense of urgency when it’s raining.
This is one of those stupidly-complicated topics. There’s a lot to cover here, no time to dilly-dally, no messing around, I’m going to get right to it.
First, the Vitamin D issue… We need Vitamin D for bone strength, strong immune system function, and studies have suggested high levels may reduce the risk of some forms of cancer. Many of us who live in the northern territories (rain!) are D deficient. The best source of Vitamin D is sunshine on bare, sunscreen-free skin for about 20 minutes a day.
The best way to prevent sunburns is to cover up. Wide brimmed hats, light-weight, long-sleeved shirts, tube socks worn under Velcro sandals are all a good way to go. OK, you can skip the tube socks, but they epitomize how I feel when I go into the sun completely covered: like a total nerd. I save this special look for working in the yard or any time I don’t really care. Whenever I can go with a completely, or partially, covered look I do. I’m always in search of cute sun hats (that also double as rain hats).
If you’re going to wear sunscreen, the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) 2010 Sunscreen Guide. is a great resource. When choosing a sunscreen, the first question to ask is: can I tolerate a mineral sunscreen? If yes, the EWG approved mineral sunscreens listed here offer the best protection without any chemicals considered to be hormone disruptors.
Mineral sunscreens are often thick and white and don’t rub into the skin completely. I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t turn Josie’s skin bright blue. I mean bright blue. She doesn’t burn easily and I do my best to keep her covered. If I can’t keep her covered and we’re working in the yard or somewhere she won’t get strange looks, I put mineral sunscreen on her. If we’re out at a beach or some fun place with other people and I don’t want her to look like she just stepped out of Avatar, I occasionally (but rarely) put a non-mineral, well-rated sunscreen, which contains at least one hormone disruptor, on her exposed skin.
Gasp! A hormone disruptor on my baby? This is a good time to remember that we’re trying to decrease the overall toxic load on our bodies across a broad range of categories (foods, cosmetics, air quality, etc). We (and by we I mean I) do the best we can but sometimes we have to compromise even for purely cosmetic purposes.
Of the 500 sunscreens the Environmental Working Group evaluated, they recommend only 39 (8%). Here’s why:
- Many sunscreen manufacturers make exaggerated SPF claims that cannot be proven.
- There’s new information on two common sunscreen ingredients: Vitamin A and Oxybenzone. A recent study found tumors and lesions develop faster on skin coated with Vitamin A and Oxybenzone is a synthetic estrogen found in 97% of bodies that were tested by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
If you have a sunscreen you use and love, you can look for its rating here.
If you want to buy a product not on the list, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Stick to SPF 15-50
- Avoid ingredient Vitamin A also known as retinyl palmitate
- Avoid ingredient oxybenzone
- Avoid sunscreens with insect repellant
In case you couldn’t already tell, the federal Food and Drug Administration still has not issued regulations for sunscreens makers. Thank goodness for EWG.
Now, get out there and enjoy the sun, but for heaven’s sake, don’t tell me about it (rain!).
As for Rehydration…
- Shoelaces?
After the most recent McDonalds debacle, orange drink is clearly out of the question (as if it wasn’t already, but oh how I used to love it!). The latest news involves lead found in juice and packaged fruits. Wednesday the Environmental Law Foundation “filed Notices of Violation of California Proposition 65 Toxics Right to Know law, alleging the toxic chemical lead was found in a variety of children’s and baby foods. The specific food categories included apple juice, grape juice, packaged pears and peaches (including baby food), and fruit cocktail.”
The complete list of lead contaminated juices includes brands I trust like Santa Cruz Organics and Trader Joe’s. The list also includes a few non-contaminated brands.
Josie doesn’t drink much juice because it seems to make her crazy – like jump on her trampoline while Mommy counts to 75 (one count per jump) then sing the alphabet song twice without stopping kind of crazy. Have I mentioned that we have a mini-trampoline in our living room? A few months ago I met with the coolest organizer/decorator in the world. Can you see us standing around, me with my notebook in hand to take down her brilliance, her rubbing her chin with index finger and thumb (she wouldn’t do that but just play along). We move furniture, we reconfigure, we solve all the problems of the room then… Hey, you know what would look great right here? A mini-tramp, yeah, one with blue padding around the edge decorated with green frogs and a giant foam handle. Just far enough from the fireplace that if she falls, she won’t hit her head but close enough to the kitchen… Yes, right here in the center, let me just move this coffee table out of the way, OMG its perfect!
Moving on… We try to eat unprocessed whole foods and this is just one more case for that. Packaging and processing can cause all kinds of trouble. But what’s a child to drink? I’m going to put Josie on an all-water, retrieved from pure mountain streams, rehydration plan. She will drink this pure-mountain-stream water only from a stainless steel cup, scratch that, she will drink only from her cupped hands, her cupped hands washed with organic handmade soap and air dried. And the stream will be high in the mountains, no scratch that, she will drink only melted fresh mountain snow from organic-soap-washed, cupped hands. Then I will obtain a sheep and I will dress her in clothes made of wool. She will only eat lettuce from the garden. Bathing will become unnecessary. If you need me, I’ll be in the forest, gathering sticks and fallen branches to whittle into shoes.
A New Story
We have things to do.
The past few months, when I’ve thought about my approaching five year cancerversary (anniversary of diagnosis), I’ve considered all kinds of ways to celebrate. But the truth is, that week, that whole month in fact, was busy. Real busy. I could see it coming well ahead of time with the events/commitments/fun all piling on top of each other on the calendar – Paul’s ship party, my mother’s birthday party, my mother’s back surgery, a night of sailing, a friend to pick up from the airport, a writing retreat.
Then there was a blog post to write. At first I thought I would tell the story of the breast cancer diagnosis and of the day I found out it was Inflammatory Breast Cancer and the sensational article I stumbled across, during my first terrifying breast cancer awareness month, that stated in simple terms it wasn’t an issue of if but when the cancer would come back and that there was a 90% chance I’d be dead in 5 years. But I don’t want to tell these stories again. They’ve all been written and told. Instead I want to tell new stories.
I want to tell the story of my mother’s birthday party. There’s my great husband who struggles with a punctuality problem who, of course, forgets he’s supposed to leave work early. There’s his meeting that runs long. There’s the changing of the child into her party dress in the parking lot of my grandmother’s retirement home. There’s our late arrival. There’s my daughter’s uncharacteristic disinterest in her grandparents, her inability to eat dinner, her intense dislike of her own chair. Then there’s my daughter’s barf, all over my great husband, all over the table and the carpet. There’s the rushing to the bathroom and changing out of her party dress and into the ugly and too-small backup outfit. There’s the rinsing of the party dress in the sink and the janitor cleaning up the carpet. There’s our return to the dining room for just long enough to say our goodbyes and go home and feed our dog who is starving and exhausted after a weekend of long-distance swimming adventures.
The next day there’s a sick baby (and I do mean ‘baby’ here, not toddler, because when she’s sick, she will always be my baby) and soup to be made and my mother’s surgery and flowers to be gathered to be taken to the hospital, and hospital rooms to be visited and doctor’s appointments to be made and none of this. None of it is for me.
This story, and my life right now, is exactly as it should be.