This one is for you, Rebecca

Rebecca, I dressed Viola in the adorable purple dress you sent her, and she was so cute that I had to take a picture for you.

Thanks again!

Warning: reading this will cause you to have a very itchy scalp

So you probably want to hear the story. Are you sure you do? It's horrible.

It started on Saturday night. Matt woke up Eleanor at 10:30 to go the bathroom, as is our custom, and on the way back to her bed she scratched her head. I saw the scratching and commented that we ought to watch her for lice, since she just scratched her head.

I wasn't serious, not really. That is just me doing one of the things I do best: worrying about the worst possible scenario. I'm very, very good at this. If Matt is at work late and doesn't call, I worry that he has gotten in a car accident on the way home and is dead. And now I am a single mother, with no income, and my children will grow up without a father. Should I sell the house and move in with my parents or stay here, try to live on life insurance and keep the kids in the only house they've known? Or how about this one: I get a funky little bump on my leg that won't go away. It's not a mole, it's weird, I've never seen anything like it. Naturally, it must be cancer. It will metastasize and I will die. And my children will grow up without a mother. Oh, my Theodore will be so lonely! Viola will have to drink formula! Horrifying!

So naturally, when I saw Eleanor scratch her head, the worst possible scenario would be lice. Because indeed, that would be the worst possible scenario. I never ever thought that I would have kids with lice. I never had it growing up. I have known families that got it, and while I never thought it was negligence on their part, I just thought it would never be something I would have to deal with. Their problem, not mine, right?

The next morning we celebrated Valentine's Day. The Valentine's Day fairy had come and turned our milk pink, we ate cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and everyone had a little treat on their breakfast plate. It was a wonderful morning. Matt went to his church meetings and I got the kids ready for church. They were all dressed and all I had to do was fix Eleanor's hair. While I did this, I vaguely remembered my comment the night before about lice and thought I should check her hair. Just to be on the safe side.

I parted her hair and took a close look.

And saw lice.

This is where I exercised all the restraint I had. I did not scream. I think I gasped loudly and jumped back a little, but knew better than scream, which is what I wanted to do.

There were little bugs, crawling all over Eleanor's scalp.

I FREAKED out. Internally. I wasn't going to let the kids see me making a big deal about this. But I totally lost it. My heart started racing, my mind raced, and I wanted to peel my skin off and burn it. I hate bugs. And there were bugs on my daughter's head.

I checked Peter's hair. Lice there, too.

I checked Theodore's hair. He had the WORST CASE EVER. His little adorable head was COVERED with lice and eggs and scaly brown stuff. Oh, it was awful. My baby!

I called Matt on his phone and demanded that he come home immediately. We would not be going to church today. It was time to quarantine ourselves.

As soon as Matt got home, I went to the pharmacy and armed myself. RID shampoo, lice and nit combs, extra shampoo, and a new hairbrush since I was going to throw the old one out.

When I got home, sat the boys down and shaved all their hair off. Peter wasn't to happy about it, but when I very calmly told him he had bugs in his hair, he was willing to let me do it.



(Notice the look of disgust on my face while I buzz Theodore's head.)

Then I shampooed their hair. They were not happy with this, but it had to be done.

After this I realized that EVERY SINGLE SOFT ITEM IN OUR HOUSE NEEDED TO BE CLEANED. We are family that likes to snuggle. With lots of blankets. We had to wash all the bedding, pillows, blankets, towels, coats, hats, gloves, throw pillows, car seats, backpacks, stuffed animals, and any other soft thing in the house. Matt and I went through the house and brought everything that needed to be washed down to the laundry room. It almost filled the entire room. It is now Wednesday, and the laundry is still not done.

But now the lice are gone. The boys are clear, the baby doesn't have any, and Matt and I can't find any on each other. We're still checking, though. I think I'm going to have Matt check my head every day for about a month. Or longer, just to be safe.

Every day, sometimes twice a day, time permitting, I've been combing through Eleanor's hair, section by section, and picking out the eggs. If I miss ONE, the lice will come back. They are tiny, tine little eggs that stick stubbornly to the hair shaft. They will not come off by combing alone; I have to pick them out with my fingers since they practically cement themselves to the hair. I find less every day, but I'm still finding them. In a few days I'll do another RID shampoo and two weeks from Valentine's Day we should be clear.

I now have so much sympathy for anyone who has gone through this. And I am very grateful that I don't have to cut off Eleanor's hair, although I really want to. I also want to cut off all of my hair. I'd look good bald, right?

Almost as cute as these boys.

Only two words are necessary:

Head lice.

This

This is how Viola feels when Eleanor picks out her clothes.

This is how Eleanor feels when she gets to play in the freshly fallen snow.

This is how Peter feels when he falls head-first into the snow.

This is how Theodore feels when he gets hot chocolate after playing in the snow.

This is how the older three kids feel when they're woken up early, shoved into a cold van in -20 degree weather, forced to leave the haven of Grandma and Grandpa's house, and one of the them (the one with the bucket, of course!) starts puking.

This the crepe that Peter made for Mommy. Seriously, he made it ALL BY HIMSELF. From looking up the recipe in my cookbook, all the way to my plate, he did everything with very little supervision. By the way, the crepe is blurry because Mommy was hungry and ready to eat.

How to make your mama cry

Dear Viola,

You have now been with us for six weeks (!) and I think it's time for your first performance review. To be honest, there are a few things that need improvement.

1. You're getting bigger.

Yes, I am glad you're a voracious nurser. You still nurse in the newborn fashion, where nothing can distract you and you nurse and nurse and nurse until you're slowly falling asleep. It's adorable. But do you really have to get so much bigger? Can't you stay tiny for a little bit longer? I know in six months I'll look back and coo over how small you were, but it seems like every morning I wake up and you've changed a little overnight. Your cheeks will be chubbier, or your legs will be bigger, or your head just a little more melon-like. Please stop.

Remember this?
It's now this.

You may very well be my last baby, and I'd kind of like it to slow down a little, please.

2. You're losing your hair.

Admittedly, you did not have much to begin with. And to your credit, you're not losing it like Peter did, receding-hairline style. But those two bald spots on the side of your head? Not so cute. Why can't you be more like Mary? That girl had some serious hair at your age.

3. You puke down my shirt.

You love to do this. Don't deny it. Stop.

4. You wake up as soon as I put you down.

You have sleeping issues, I know. You fall asleep easily, but staying asleep is a challenge. You like to wake up five minutes after falling asleep, then loudly complain about how tired you are. You also like to fall asleep the second your head hits a vertical surface that is not mommy or daddy. This is not good for my mental health. Try staying asleep once or twice; I promise you'll love it.

5. You got a cold.

Like the hair issue, I know this is not really your fault. But you caught this cold when you were two weeks old and haven't shaken it yet, and it's really causing you a quite a bit of grief. You are congested all the time and now have gotten into the habit of waking up at 3 am because you can't breathe. There's nothing more unpleasant than having to share your bed with a baby that a) takes up way too much space, and b) insists on creating a personal soundtrack filled with "snork, sniffle, gasp, snuffle, cry".

Now that we've gone over areas that need improving, let me just say how much I like having you in our family. Your brothers and sister still love you more than anything and still think you're The Cutest Thing Ever and love to look at you and exclaim how cute/little/funny/stinky you are. You sleep fairly well at night (besides the cold making you wake up) and manage about half the night in your own bed, which I appreciate very much. I have decided that, in light of your quick learning and desire to please, I will only ask one thing of you if you want to stay a member of the Rhynardski (shoutout to the Smithowskis!) family.

Give me a nice big smile. Show your mama how much you love her.



Good girl. We'll talk again at your next performance review.

Two weeks in and feelin' fine

It's amazing how quickly our family has adjusted to having Viola here. I'm sure part of it was having an almost endless amount of help, with still no end in sight (thank goodness!). Diedra flew out here the day Viola was born (a happy coincidence), so I had help waiting for me at home, and mom came out three days later.

I'm also amazed by how quickly my pregnancy seems a thing of the past. Time moved incredibly slowly for me the last week, and now it feels like forever since I was pregnant. My recovery was even faster this time around; besides some issues that are entirely TMI and not related to childbirth, the day after I didn't feel like I had given birth at all. Oh, sure, I had that annoying flabby belly and the hormone surges, but physically I felt really, really good. I consider it one of the benefits of giving birth naturally; my body had a really hard time getting off all the drugs when I had Peter, but Eleanor, Theodore, and Viola's births were all easy to bounce back from.

I was very, very blessed that this time around I had resolved beforehand to be patient about when Viola was going to be born. Long story, not made especially short: when Theodore was born, I was sure he was going to be early. Mom took off two weeks to come stay with me and help with the baby and because I was so sure he was going to be early, she came out early. Every day I didn't give birth was one less day I would have her to help me, and I felt like we just sat around and waited, and waited, and waited. Every morning I would wake up and think, "Darn! Still pregnant!" He was only two days late (so much for my premonition!), but I only had four days of my mom's help before she had to leave. I was a wreck when she left. It was not a pretty sight. This time around, I was determined not to torture myself like that again, so I adopted a very nonchalant attitude about when the baby would be born. Mom stressed out more than I did about the birth, but it actually worked out perfectly that I was eight days late. At the end, I was getting impatient and uncomfortable, but I wasn't stressing myself out. I had one bad day, but because I had decided before the fact not to stress out about the birth, I took it all in stride. If I hadn't decided to be nonchalant about it, I would have had a breakdown.

So now Viola is two weeks old. She's already getting visibly stronger and bigger. She is constantly getting love from her older brothers and sister; almost every day I walk in on Eleanor holding her and singing to her. I'm so grateful that the birth went well and I didn't have to have a breech birth or a c-section and that I'm recovering well.

And I'm so grateful for my new little girl. I've been waiting for her for a long time.

This is the before picture. There's no way I'm putting up an after picture.


My two girls.


This is how I look when I don't get enough sleep. Maybe it has something to do with the crying going on.




The oldest and the youngest. Peter has discovered how toasty warm she is.

Introducing:

Viola Brigitta Rhynard. Emphasis on the first syllable, like you're saying Violet, but ending it with an "a".

I am tired.