Lousy

And I mean that in the literal sense.

But first:

Have you seen the new Dove Real Beauty video? The one with the forensic artist? It's a good one. I recommend watching it. Now.

It's not a perfectly executed message, but I appreciate what they're trying to say: that we are too critical of ourselves and our perceived flaws; others don't see the imperfections that seem to stand out so much to ourselves. I read this book once called "The Art of Imperfection." It said something like "we have no idea what it is about ourselves that other people admire, find charming, find attractive, love." Or something.

I could go on.


Try to remember this message as you continue reading this post.

You may have noticed that I have changed my blog header. It was long overdue, since June looks so different now. Just as a refresher, here is the old one:

Cute Baby June, Cute Dane, Cute Joel, Less Cute Ami. I knew it wasn't a great picture of me. I actually didn't like the picture at all. But I was a couple of months post-baby, and it was the best picture of me from that photo shoot to crop for the header. I didn't like it, but I didn't want to be too vain, and I figured no one would be as critical or care about my appearance as much as I would. So if I didn't care that much, everyone else would care even less. 

Apparently, I was wrong.

A certain younger brother of mine told me the other day that I really needed to update that header. Here, I will quote him verbatim:

"it still has fat face ami, puppy dog marcshmallow june, goofy dane, and a normal joel"

"tha picture of you is horrible

  I don't know why you ever put it up"

I later spoke with him on the phone, and he went on:

"Man, it is horrible."

"I would never have put that up."

"I would have destroyed that picture."

"You really need to change it."

I think you get the idea. 

So thanks for nothing, Dove. You were wrong. 

I'm laughing about the interaction with my brother. It sort of typifies much of the interaction in the Hood family--not for the faint of heart. 

I think it's pretty fair to say that his reaction must have been so negative because he normally sees me as so gorgeous, photogenic, stunning, and lovely. Captivating, you might say. Right?

Right?

*crickets*

Anyway, on to the lice.

That's right: lice. We had lice. 

It was kind of a crazy story. We have a Frost family email group so we can keep each other updated on the goings-on in our lives, and one sister-in-law (in Dallas) mentioned that all four of her kids had ear infections. Not fun. Another sister-in-law (in North Carolina) responded, "At least you don't have four kids with lice." Ugh. Another sister-in-law (in Seattle) responded, "We do!" And the lice-talk began. Another sister-in-law (also in North Carolina [I have a lot of sisters-in-law]) said they had recently battled lice. I think it's natural for people to feel a little more heightened paranoia about lice after hearing several stories like that. Your head might even be feeling a little itchy right now. Mine was.

I kept thinking about lice. So the next morning, Dane was sitting on my lap, and I started casually looking through his hair. I found some weird looking things stuck to his hair, close to the scalp. I start madly Googling. What I found looked very much like the pictures of lice eggs, nits. 

He had lice. 

It was a crazy coincidence. With all those miles between us there was no connection between any of the Frost lice infestations (except the North Carolina ones). We just all happened to get lice at around the same time. 

I was mortified. I kind of freaked out. 

Joel found one louse on Dane's head, and about 30 nits. I found one louse on June's head, no nits. I found two nits on Joel's head. He found about 10 nits on my head. 

We just did over-the-counter treatment, and it worked out fine. I was only a little mortified as I frantically searched for the lice shampoo at Wal-Mart and Dane kept loudly saying, "We need to buy stuff for the bugs on my head, right? We're here because of the bugs on my head?"

I'm feeling kind of stressed just remembering. Anyway, we did the OTC treatment on the kids, and I doused my hair with olive oil and kept it in overnight. I'll spare you most of the details of the ordeal, but PLEASE don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions. I feel pretty much like an expert now. 

To ensure total lice annihilation, we shaved Dane's head. Here is one last look at my beautiful boy's beautiful hair:

Here is one of his "cool guy face."

Bzzzzzzz........

I cried.

Dane was a little worried that we would look weird with less hair, but we assured him (and me) that he was still handsome. Still cute. 

But I'm looking forward to it growing back.

Now, if anyone comments on his new short hair, he just matter-of-factly says, "Yeah, I had lice." I like that he's not embarrassed about it.

In the end, I can think of a million things worse than your kid having lice. But it was not fun. At all. And I hope it never happens to us, or any of you, again. 

Two worst things about having lice:

1) The laundry

I washed all of Dane's clothes/coats/hats. All of our bedding, every day. I dried everything that couldn't be washed in the dryer on high. Anything that I worried might melt went into a trash bag and suffocated for 2 weeks. So much laundry. I was doing so much cleaning and laundry and stressing out that my hands cracked and bled. Just a little. 

2) The searching

The CDC says you don't have to freak out about finding every last nit. But anecdotal evidence strongly encourages you to. And wouldn't you just feel better knowing you did everything you possibly could? And, let me tell you, we here at Paradise Frost have a LOT of hair. It is hard enough to get Dane's hair all the way wet, let alone make sure there are no tiny eggs in it. And I have even more hair, and it is LONG. We were basically lice paradise. Lice Paradise Frost. Boo...

My eyes were constantly searching. The one louse I found on June's head was a stray the day after treatment; she must have picked it up from the floor or something despite my maniacal laundry and vacuuming. But I zeroed in on it because of my paranoid eagle vision. Looking, searching. Even after the school nurse had cleared Dane to go back to school and I felt like we were in the clear, I washed all the bedding again just in case. And I couldn't turn my brain off from searching. I had a mini heart attack one day when I was making sandwiches for the kids; I saw the flax seeds in the bread and my body automatically reacted like I'd found more lice. Joel makes fun of me, but I am still paranoid. It'll lessen soon. I hope. 

At least two of my sisters-in-law ended up using professional lice services; yes, those exist. Professional nit-pickers. I very seriously considered using them, too. The services my SILs used apparently do free examinations of the whole family and then you pay about $100/hour for the treatment and follow-up. But the services here in OKC did not have free exams, and the $100/hour just to be checked (and knowing our lusciously thick hair would take longer than an hour to go through) kept me from taking the plunge. I'm not discouraging it though. If you can afford it, it is probably worth it. If you can't afford it, I have some tips for you. Give me a call if you need it. But I hope you won't have to.

Ugh. 

To end on a positive note, here is a St. Patrick's Day photo of our blissful, pre-lice days. We had gone down to Dallas to visit Stephen/Meghan/Lauren/Molly/Claire/Baby Ben. 

The babies were slightly less blissful:

Also, for those of you who don't know, I started another blog in which I chronicle my adventures baking through Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. I'm having fun doing it, and you can, too! I personally got permission from the authors to post the recipes, so I post those along with photos and commentary. Come on by!

http://bakedodyssey.blogspot.com/

Done

Super Saturday is over.
I am so happy.
I am so tired.
I am so happy.



Also, Kenji has scared a few people by cryptically mentioning a flipped SUV. Back when we went to the apple orchard, we stopped at the bank on the way. As we're waiting in line for the ATM, we hear the sickening crunch of cars smashing. I turned around and saw a cyclist laying on the ground, and I thought he had been hit, which would have been very bad. We all jump out of the car. The cyclist is walking away (so he's not dead) but there is a smashed sedan and an SUV on its side, still rocking from the impact. Kenji actually saw it tip and fall over. Anyway, apparently the SUV (which was being driven by an eight-months-pregnant woman) ran the red light, smashing into the sedan and narrowly missing the cyclist. Everyone was fine. It was pretty scary though. The cyclist was mad that there was so much hubbub about the woman being pregnant because she's the one who caused the crash in the first place. He twisted his ankle or something when he fell. Joel helped the pregnant lady get her stuff out, and the paramedics were there almost immediately, and they got her out. Again, everyone was fine. Crazy, eh? So now the mystery has been solved.

Also, Super Saturday is over.

Ode to Family. And Carlos.

My family was in town all last week for their Spring Break to come hear Kenji play at his recital. We had a grand old time, but I failed to take a single picture. Lame. I know that Mika took some, so I’ll have to have her email them to me.

They arrived on Sunday, and we played a game of Jeopardy. (The old board game. We found it at a thrift store for $3.00. Swish.) The highlight of the game was when one of my siblings got confused, and, instead of reading the “answer” portion in Jeopardy fashion, they read “What is a solar eclipse?” out to everybody. We laughed a lot.

On Monday, we did some heavy-duty shopping at Cabela’s, IKEA, and Old Navy. I always get excited to take people to IKEA and then I get paranoid that they will think it is lame, but I should know better by now that IKEA never disappoints. Then, we all ate corned beef and cabbage for a yummy St. Patrick’s Day dinner. And of course, we played the Wii. You can just assume “we played a lot of Wii and watched several episodes of The Office” for all of these days.

On Tuesday, we found coordinating clothes and got ourselves all ready to take family pictures. We haven’t had professional, non-wedding related family pictures in several years, so we needed to document the arrival of the all the in-laws and Dane. They turned out really well, I think. I’ll pick them up later this week.

On Wednesday, we decided to take a “slow day.” But it didn’t really work out because we kept going shopping or something. Mika got her hair cut. What else did we do? Lots of Wii. Kenta and Kendall and Brady all were able to visit some of their other relatives and friends. It’s nice that so many people have connections in Utah.

On Thursday, we had our most eventful day. We had a bit of a time crunch because Kenji’s recital was that afternoon. We rode the train up to Joel’s office so we could have lunch with him. Haha, it was more expensive than driving, but it was fun. On the way up, my mom and sisters happened to look out the window right as someone was throwing up into a trashcan. So it was like we were really in New York, haha. Then we met up with Joel at Chili’s. The service was really slow, but we didn’t think too much of it until the waiter brought out TWO molten chocolate cakes to apologize for how slow they were. TWO!! We were happy. Then we got on the train to ride back. It was more crowded than before, so I was standing in the back with Kenta, Joel, and Dane in the stroller when I smelled the distinctive, alcoholic smell of a man who was drunk too early in the day. Then he started talking to me:

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Excuse me?”

“You didn’t have to do that (motioning to his eyes).”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand…(catching on that he’s talking about my makeup)…oh. Thanks.”

“You’re a every beautiful woman.”

“Um, thanks.”

“Whats’ your name?”

“Ami (oops, I probably should have used a fake name).”

“I’m Carlos.” Then he holds out his hand to shake hands. I reluctantly shake hands with him. Then he pulls my hand up to his mouth with a dramatic pause and kisses it.

“Hi, Carlos. That’s my husband right there.”

“Oh, d--n. He’s going to kick my a--. I’m sorry. I’m just saying you’re a lucky man.”

The next five minutes comprised Carlos apologizing over and over again and trying to explain himself to Joel by using various slang terms popular in the mid-90’s to describe me, such as “ ‘da bomb”, “all that”, and “fine lookin’ woman”. Finally, Joel reminds him that he’s already repeated himself several times. So Carlos turns back to me and says, “You need to remind him.”

“Remind him?”

“Remind him that Carlos is out there.”

“Sure thing, Carlos.”

Then he kisses my hand again and slowly moved his way down the train and away from us. Of course, my entire family was watching and laughing at all this take place. At one point, Carlos sat down next to Mika, and my dad planned out the most effective series of punches to take him out, but it was unnecessary. He eventually went all the way to the other end of the train car. But just when we thought our adventures were over, Edward Scissorhands stepped onto the train.

This guy seriously looked like him, minus the scissor hands. The hair, the outfit, the creepy face. He was only on the train for a couple of stops, and he snapped his fingers as he stepped off.

It was an eventful train ride.

Then we set off for Kenji’s recital. Before we even got on the freeway, my dad’s car ran over a piece of metal that completely ripped a hole in his tire (we were following behind). He tried to pull over into a parking lot but failed to see another little car in the other lane and there was almost a collision. But we made it into the lot to survey the damage. It was crazy how much it thrashed the tire. Joel went and retrieved the piece of metal so it wouldn’t cause further damage. I brought it home, simply so I could blog about it:

I included a ruler and one of Joel’s shoes to help with comparison. It is big and heavy. Luckily, the car had a full sized spare, so we changed the tire and were on our way again. My mom and I madly found refreshments at Sams’ because Kenji requested a little reception after the recital. But we got there and found out that food is not allowed. Someone hadn’t passed on that little bit of information. But Joel happened to know one of the employees there at the Covey Center for the Arts, and he allowed us to have the reception. There were a good number a people there, and Kenji played very well. I haven’t heard him play by himself in a long time. I was impressed.

Friday, we did more shopping, played more Wii, ate more food. It was a relaxing but very fun week. Then they headed out Saturday morning, and we miss them. They all loved seeing Dane. It was cute to see them all interact with him. We’ll have to plan another trip to see them soon.

And remember: Carlos is out there.