now she is six

ruby turned six this week. cliche, but hard to believe. on her actual birthday we had presents and a cupcake with breakfast, a beard family tradition.she wanted a 'puppy princess party', so yesterday her friends came over for an afternoon of crafts and cupcake decorating. here are a couple of photos from the day:

misery

misery loves company.

i think we have the lice eradicated. i’ve been combing the girls hair several times a day and only found one nit yesterday. we’re still due for another round of the toxic shampoo on sunday but we may be close to putting that little adventure behind us.

enter a new problem: serious urticaria. unfortunately i discovered the hard way that i have an allergy to sulfa (. i am a girl who never goes to the doctor and will barely take a tylenol with a splitting head ache. since i never take anything, i had no idea that i have an allergy. on day number 6 i took my dose of sulfa and went off to swim lessons with the kids. on the way home my back started to itch and wondered if there was something on the chair i had been sitting on. by the time i arrived home ( about 10 minutes from first itch) my trunk was covered with hives. by bed time i had a fever, shaking chills and was decorated from head to toe with bright red patches. i took some benedryl and went to bed.

this morning i woke up and now my whole body is one big red papule. and boy do they itch. i feel miserable and my mom has gone off to get claratin and tagmet which are supposed to help with symptoms.

so instead of getting a bunch of things done while the kids are at school i am sitting here having a pity party. and itching.

uninvited guests

this weekend was our annual trip to cannon beach with my housemates from college. there were 5 of us who lived in a run down house ( ok a DUMP) across from the college. our nick name for the house was vag village...

for the last 5 years, the four of us who live in the pnw have gathered at a wonderful beach house with a view of haystack rock to spend a weekend with spouses and kids . there is great food, lots of laughs , story telling and time on the beach. we have been gifted with great weather most years and it has become on of the best weekends of the summer for me. there are sometimes other folks besides the village girls which has added some fun to over the years. there are always dogs and kids.

on arrival all the kids fell in together thick as thieves. running around wrestling, having pillow fights and generally just being kids. loud giggles , piggyback rides and fun stuff.

walking back from the tidepools on saturday morning ruby was ahead of me and i noticed some white glints in her jet black hair. hmm, sand? on closer inspection it was not sand. i asked diane if she would take a look. not good. you guessed it, this year there were some uninvited guests that hitched a ride with us. LICE!

i immediatedly headed off to seaside for lice products- shampoo, combs, cream rinse .furniture spray. by the time i got back laundry was going and someone had already checked the internet for the strategy. the washer and dryer were going for the remainder of our time. instead of painting toe nails on the deck this year, we shampooed and picked nits. the kids all had a l-ice cream cone treat when we were done.

i am thankful for friendships that can find humor in uninvited guests.

privacy

i'm going to make the blog private in the next week or two. i want to be able to speak more freely about various things so i need a bit more control over who reads. i can add you to the list of readers if you email me. if we don't know each other, just tell me who you are and how we are connected. chris

hazel's family day

yesterday was the pirate's official family day. two years ago i stood in a sweaty hot chinese government building waiting for the orphange personelle to hand me the tiny girl i met a few days before. she looked at me with a serious expression and was very quiet until we got back to the hotel and then she started to cry . and cried until she fell asleep exausted at 5pm.

yesterday she dressed herself in tie dyed tank top and red and white pants. we spent the day just hanging out. to celebrate , auntie britta suggested that we go to wongs king seafood restaraunt. wongs king is a place that is very china- large tables with lazy susans in the middle, tanks of seafood swimming waiting to be selected, many wait staff dressed in different uniforms- one for host types, one for waiters, one for kitchen staff. most were complete with tall hats.

she was enthralled with going to look at the crabs and shrimp. once she got close to the tanks, she would exclaim: "look mama , its moving!".we had a great dinner with aunty britta and elizabeth, a friend from college. the spicey eggplant was delish.

to cap the lovely day ruby read a "frog and toad" story to us and they both fell into deep slumber for the whole night. i went to bed a happy and greatful mama.

here is hazel this week.

the 80's

i don’t watch much tv anymore- who has time with 2 kids and working full time. since we don’t have cable, my choices at home are limited. i confess to a love of grey’s anatomy ( preceded by love for l.a.. law, and er, i guess i love the ensemble night time soap masquerading as drama...) but at work i have both time and access to cable. law and order sucks me in more often than not, and i do watch some television during down time on labor and delivery.

sunday nights there is not much on so i sometimes get sucked into bad tv land. last night was one of those nights i ended up in the 80’s and could not get out!

i was in college from 1980 to 1985, taking a slight detour along the way to graduation. although technically i am not sure i can call myself a child of the 80’s, i often do. that decade was a time of change for me -i moved away from home , spent my first summer in the tetons, fell in love, got my heart broken and broke a heart or two, decided what i wanted to do with my life, made some incredible life long friends and started on the path of who i am today.

last night pretty woman was on. i admit, the fluff sucked me in. while following along the story line, i couldn’t help making some observations:

richard gere has aged well. really well. men seem to do that. he is quintessentially handsome and always has been. these days he sports more wrinkles . he looked really good by today's standards.

the cell phone he has in the movie looks like a block of tillamook cheese. it is the clunkiest thing you have ever seen. seeing him hold it to his ear is a comical moment.

julia looks much the same. however her “sophisticated” wardrobe is matronly and baggy by today's standards. ( except the red dress she wears to the opera - that would still work) even my mom doesn’t sport that look any more. her hooker wardrobe is timeless though.

other noticeable things- thick eyebrows and big hair. phones with cords. no tattoos visible on any cast members. it was an interesting look back, what a different world it is now. slim and sleek cell phones, computers, texting, utube. wonder how we’ll look back at this decade?