Are you itchy, or is it just me?

Raging start to the day.
Within 10 minutes of my waking up, Lucy peed the bed, and Max discovered that he had lice.

I just cannot properly express the joy that a parent feels when (seperate but equally awful) catastrophy strikes each of their children concurrently. I know this was hardly a disaster, but short-term, it was a real pain in the ass. The jack and jill discoveries required 6 loads of laundry, complete changes of clothes and bedding, 4 shampoos and 2 conditioners, plus scalp massages and a good dose of lysol - for pee and bugs - on the mattresses, and a complete spray treatment of all upholstered furniture in addition to our car.....

The irony is that lice (uku) do not discriminate, and they spread like a wildfire set by idiot teenagers set by lighters in South Kihei (sorry, tangent). For example, Max takes at least 2 showers a day. He is in the shower for at least 30 minutes. He soaks, and shampoos, and conditions, and scrubs - and yet, he still was stricken with these damned parasites. And of course, since he has them, we all have to be treated *just in case*. So immediately, as soon as I realized what was going on in his hair, I began to itch uncontrollably. Sympathy uku is as real a condition as actual ukus.

After a thorough de-lousing, Max headed off to school to be inspected by the school nurse and cleared for attendence. She said he looked great, and now, with all of us stinking of lice treatment (which smells like a flea bath for dogs) Lucy and I headed to Walmart to restock our supply of Rid. Then we went to the aquarium so I could decompress and take a laundry break, while she ran around like a lunatic with her friends. It's Sunny's birthday today (Happy birthday sunny-bunny we love you !) so the girls had a fine old time doing laps around the Maui Ocean Center. We tried to take pictures, but it didn't work out so good.

Now we're finishing up dinner (steak, fried rice, and broccoli, with Hawaiian Ice Cups for dessert) and then it's off to Dr. Tracey's for our adjustments and finally, home to bed. Blessed, blessed bedtime. I feel like I have had at least a week's worth of trauma packed into 12 hours. I cannot wait to zone out and snooze........

The family dinner evolution

We used to sit down together and eat the same thing at the same time. We still do, but I gotta tell you, now that I have tried the alternatives, I think it's over-rated. We have been trying this new technique lately, where we feed the kids, get them all situated, and then feed ourselves. It's pretty sweet, and I may have this be our new family eating set-up. I fundamentally believe that kids should be encouraged to try different foods, and eat what everyone else is eating - I am not feeding them chicken nuggets and pizza when they eat earlier - they just eat, well, earlier. The exception was the other night when Johnny whipped up the ahi - because i sure as hell wasn't wasting fresh seared ahi on little kids. If one of them had made even a murmer about not liking fish, I would have freaked out on them. I mean, who doesn't like caught-that-day ahi prepared in your kitchen by a professional chef ? That's just unacceptable, if you ask me.

Tonight I was feeling crappy and tired, and the steaks weren't quite defrosted, and I had forgotten to marinate them anyway, and Lucy wanted ham, and so we made them a quick dinner of ham, steak quesadillas with fresh salsa and avocado, and they sat with us and ate while we started our "grown up dinner". Now they are watching Star Wars and we are sitting down to crab cakes and potatoes au gratin and sauteed spinach for ourselves. Everyone seems pretty happy with the arrangement.

The food preparation is more fun when the kids are already eating - they aren't asking every 5 seconds when their dinner will be done, and they actually help out with suggestions and stirring, and eating bits of whatever we are making. So we are expanding their palettes, gently :)

Here are some scenes from dinner tonight - hopefully there are no shots of my bedhead and fuzzy bathrobe, which were also part of our evening. What? At least my underwear matched my bra, and I *had* a bra on - that is progress.