The grossest phone call I'll hopefully ever make

You know that article that went around about dating moms? How we moms go through the "dating bases" to find the perfect play date mom friends? It's a brilliant article and couldn't be more true.

Well, here it is the morning after all my months of stay at home mom dating and I'm making that phone call. Ya know the one. Instead of having to call and tell them you have herpa-syphal-aides, you have to tell them your kid has lice. My kid had LICE. 

Bugs.

Crawling.

Hiding. 

Laying eggs. 

Hatching.

Freakin' grossing me out.

There it was Saturday morning, and this house full of sickness, was sleeping in. Kevin had strep. Stella had strep. Henry had bronchitis. Ruby was a ticking time bomb in contracting all of it. Stella was feeling better, her bubble gum medicine had taken care of most of it. Kevin was manning up and just dealing with it. Henry was sleeping it off. I suggested a little pool day with all of us. Mostly with Kevin, because me and three small kids at the pool makes me anxious. I started to gather everything up, but first I grabbed Stella to braid her hair, ya know so I don't have to watch it get in her eyes while she is making cannon balls. She brushed it out first and I grabbed the comb to start braiding. 

Then I saw the first one, a flicker. In and out of her blonde hair. I told her to stay still while I searched for whatever it was in her hair. I couldn't find it, but told Kevin that I needed him to look at something. It couldn't be lice right? How could she have lice? My head started itching with the thought of it.

I kept combing through her hair and found another one. I grabbed the tweezers and pulled it out. There it was. A bug. Crawling in her hair. I rushed to google. I compared my sesame shaped, brown, bug with the one google was showing me. Yep. Lice. 

I started digging more and more into her mop of hair and they were everywhere. Bugs. In her hair. Then I started noticing there were little brown flecks all over. Eggs. There were eggs in her hair. Bugs and Eggs. 

{Insert heebee-geebees. gggggrrrrooooossssss} 

Luckily, thankfully, Stella handled it all perfectly. I pulled a Lice out with tweezers and showed it to her. Explained she had bugs in her hair and we had to get them out, they wouldn't hurt, but that it would take a long time. She smiled and said OK. (What child just says, OK and calmly sits there with a head full of BUGS??!!!!) 

I searched google, called our hair stylists and cancelled all our plans at the pool. The moment I got in the car, heading to purchase large quantities of Lice killer, I lost it. I pulled out of the driveway and just screamed. So gross. SO GROSS. SOOOO GGGRRROOOOSSSSSS.

After two stores, 3 pharmacy's and bags full of rubber gloves, garbage bags, NIX shampoo, apple cider vinegar, a coloring book and a large Diet Coke, I think I was ready. Stella was nearly un-phased by all of it. Which was good, cause well I was freaking out enough for both of us. But just in the car, not in front of her, that would be irresponsible.

The next 5 hours were spent washing her hair, applying the shampoo, rinsing, watching bugs float down the drain and then combing her hair strand by strand with a steel lice comb. With a head lamp, tweezers and a bowl of hot soapy water, I combed. We sat in the bathroom, she watched Netflix on my iPad and I picked, and picked and picked some more. Kevin bagged everything that her sweet little head could have ever touched and its still sitting in the garage, cooking all the bugs away. We washed everything we could think of in hot water and sprayed Lice Killer on nearly everything. Mattresses, headboards, helmets, hats, couch cushions, chairs, blankets, car seats... everything.  Just in case. 

When I finally felt like all the bugs and nits had been eradicated from her hair, I climbed in the shower. I have never scrubbed myself harder in hotter water. I washed my hair 4 times. and I am still certain they are crawling all over me. 

I had to call all my friends and tell them the bad news, tell them to search their children and watch out. Such a great phone call to make, it really helps with making new friends. 

"Hi, I know we played at the park and it was really fun, but my kid has lice, so you wanna go again? no? Yeah, I don't blame you."

Yep, we are that family. The ones that got lice. Freaking LICE. But just Stella did. I keep checking everyone to see if I can find anything, and I haven't yet. Luckily. 

I guess thats what I get for going on vacation for a month, I come home to a kid with a head full of Lice. Maybe it was still worth it, those croissants were pretty amazing. But my inability to sleep because I'm certain there are bugs crawling all over my skin is sort of a bummer. {heee-beeee-geeee-beeeeesssssssss}

--Sorry if your kid has lice, I promise we have killed it all off at our house now. Can I bring you a Diet Coke as a form of my sincerest apologies? ---

love love

Ya know, just Giverny

Since arriving home from vacation life, everyone asks what was your favorite thing about Paris? Well, besides the snacks and company, it was our day in Giverny. Hands down.

We took the metro to the train station, then a train to the city of Vernon. We stumbled out of the train station and smiled at a sort of grumpy set of men and rented bicycles. We took off with our map and rode the 5km to the city of Giverny; to Monet's water lilies, to Monet's gardens. To the greatest day of our adventure.

I added the rest of the photos after the page break, since well there are a few. Click "The rest of the story"!

Croissants

**I interrupt my vacation blog posts for croissants. It seems appropriate. Plus you are tired of looking at buildings anyway.**

Alright. You ready? Really ready? Cause I've finally done it. I've made croissants with my camera in hand. And a recipe! I never thought I would actually blog these things. They are amazing don't get me wrong, but they take a lot of time and instructions for the first time. And my general rule for recipes on the world wide web is my sister has to willingly want to make them. Meaning they are under 10 ingredients and 6 steps. These are not those. But they will change your life. I bet I could get my brother to move all the furniture out of my house and back inside just for a batch. These are not difficult per se, they are time consuming. But the time is spent with the dough resting and chilling. I usually bake two batches at a time and then freeze the second. Oh they freeze beautifully. Then you can wake up pre-heat your oven while they are thawing slightly and bake for a mere 20 minutes and you have a fresh warm croissant that makes any day amazing. Throw some chocolate inside or ham and cheese and I could settle world peace.
I took notes of all my tricks and a million pictures so you too can bribe your siblings to do anything. And seriously, after you make them once, you feel like a rock star and you will want to make them all the time. I would if I had the ability to just each one, but I can't. I eat 4. Ok, 5.

Find the recipe after the page jump!

Don't be a Westminster Crabby

When we got to Paris my mom spoke Spanish. When we went to London for the day, she spoke French. Turns out if you are cute, smile pretty and nod a lot they will always bring you a Coca Light. Always.
We played up our tourist cards in London very nicely. We hopped on a double decker bus so we could make sure to fit in the most amount of tourist things. It was pretty perfect actually.

 We stumbled upon the changing of the guard. It's too bad there were to many people around, I could have wandered the park and taken a million photos of the palace.

 

 We take colored skinny jeans very seriously, apparently.

 I'd be pretty gloom about the weather too...

 BUBBLES!!!!

 Anyone else get kinda sick on London Eye?

 The horses are as stoic as the guards. It's amazing.

 Turns out you can buy your shotguns here, for a quarter of million. But you would get to purchase them with the royal family. So that's pretty fantastic.

We could have spent days in London, wandering the streets, the shops and seeing shows. But they don't have crepes on every corner so we had to go back to Paris. 

love love

The Build Up

We slightly ventured away from the city for a morning of church, heading down a back street near the balconies of cats and geraniums. We didn't understand most of the words spoken but felt everything they had said. We spoke to the missionaries and are hearts ached with excitement for our own Hunter who was just as weird as they were. We sang the hymns in English and the curly headed toddler watched us as he played with his Lightening Mcqueen. There is always something comforting about an LDS church service in a far away land. It is exactly as it is at home. Except we had crunchy baguettes instead of wonder bread.

After church, we bundled up and spent the day wandering "The Islands" as our trusty Lonely Planet book told us and it was delightful. Mostly wonderful because it felt like the Paris of the movies. With little streets paved in cobblestones and shops selling all sorts of assortments, and red umbrellas covering the corner cafe's. We ate a delightful brunch and took in the city. The rain settled in on us that afternoon as we huddled in a doorway eating our ice cream cones. (Because of course we were eating ice cream cones, in the rain. Very logical.)  We watched a young couple sneak out of the rain and fall in love in the doorway across the street from us. The city really is in love all the time. After the rain passed we wandered to Notre Dame and per Hunter's request we waited in line to go inside. (The line is very deceiving, just because it is 4 blocks long does not mean it takes long. 7 minutes of waiting.) 

Micall is the official tour guide and carried that book faithfully until we left. 

 Ahhhhhh.

 We loved this restaurant, and it's waiter, who may or may not have been a mime. Seriously.

 Deb is working on her roller blading routine at home for our next trip. She took notes.

Gargolyes everywhere. And not so many hunchbacks. 

After we wandered some more, we stumbled upon dinner that was French, and gross. I'll hand it to Micall, I have never been so impressed with someones desire to try new foods, even after we explained what Beef Tartare was. Apparently pan seared is still very raw, very cold, and very gross. It's a good thing we ate more crepes and bread pudding on the way home. 

love love

**Some photos stolen from Deb and Micall's Instagram feeds. Thanks guys!**

Those Buildings

Alright France, your pastries, ah-mazing. Your croissants rocked my world. Your art is killer. and maybe your city kinda smells. But all those things I could have predicted. I mean I did once spend 15 hours there, And I've read a few cookbooks. But the thing I didn't predict, it was those buildings. I mean seriously. Kinda lame I know. But kinda not. Every day, we'd walk a new direction, coming out of a new metro station and there would be these buildings and they would that boggle my mind. They are intricate, and yet solid. They aren't very tall, but all the windows and carvings keep my eyes wandering. They are huge in mass. I just kept thinking, how are these things centuries old? I would walk ten steps behind my mom and sister just taking photos. For no real reason, other than they are pretty. I wish I knew the story behind each one of them. But there in the land of France, I don't have google in my pocket or speak French. So by the time we got back to our hotel at night, I couldn't remember what building I needed to google. 

love love

--Also, I am now home from my month long vacation and once I fully recover, I'm certain blog posts will start spewing. Vacation Life is really hard. (i'm totally being sarcastic, vacation life is amazing!)--