Poco Mountain Girl

Ah, summah.  Or at least it feels like it, compared to the long winter we are furtively poking our heads out of.  It really seems like spring is finally here–no May snowstorms yet, and temperatures of around 60 degrees today and yesterday! (And yes, that is still a backdrop of snow in the top photo.)

With gloriously warm weather comes good, simple, summery food: lots of juicy watermelon, salads, and grilled something-or-other, thanks to the Master of the Grill.  This week David had 24-hour network-on-call, which means he has been stuck at home, plugged firmly into his computer (on a cord long enough to reach the grill).

The kids and I have been bopping around without him over the weekend.  Caleb and Zia are on a bracelet-making craze, so we went to JoAnn Fabrics yesterday in Boulder for paracord, buckles, beads, and colored elastic string.  We are all wearing 2 or 3 bracelets each–and some of us even more.

Caleb also has a whole clientele lined up for custom-made bracelets.  He made one for each of us at $7 a pop, and he has orders from relatives and friends in NM as well as classmates at school.  He has two different stitch styles down, and can pump out a bracelet in a matter of minutes.

Zia also has customers, but her clientele is less lucrative (though every bit as giddy with joy to receive a bracelet of their very own).

I got one, too–she said it’s an early Mother’s Day present, and didn’t charge me for it.

Zia made this funny picture the other day. That little guy looks so scared of the Franken-monster.  One wonders where her inspiration comes from, with a mother who guards her like a hawk from scary stories and movies.

Speaking of movies, I took the kids to watch Bears at the Nederland theater Friday night.  It was really good–informative and funny, too–with DisneyNature’s amazing footage and a narrator that makes you laugh.

As great as this week has been, it hasn’t been completely void of misfortune.  Wednesday I had the right side of my teeth and gums deep-cleaned, which isn’t exactly a misfortune–I needed it desperately.  I had lots of nice rocky “castles” built up under my gums, causing the gums to pull away from the teeth (lovely visual, I know).

I started my session by accidentally biting my dental hygienist’s finger as soon as she put her hand in my mouth.  It got us off to a great start.  After a battalion of numbing shots in my gums, I endured 2 hours of scraping (while listening to Hawaiian Island music, lol), followed by another 5 hours of being too numb to smile, eat, or even swallow.  Which was unfortunate, because my mouth tends to like to move around quite a bit in the course of 7 hours. When it finally wore off, I couldn’t stop smiling and stretching my mouth into all kinds of contortions.  It’s heavenly to have such complete control of all those muscles.  The other half of my mouth gets done toward the end of the month, and I’m not looking forward to it.

Misfortune #2 had to do with Cash’s bottom. In all my maternal experience, I have never met a diaper rash I couldn’t cure with natural and/or homemade remedies.  Last week I met my match.

I tried Burt’s Bees diaper cream, my mix of olive oil and limewater, homemade vitamin-infused baby oil, plain olive oil, coconut oil and shea butter, Zum Rub, Psorzema cream, aloe vera, mandarin remedy balm, corn starch, vegetable glycerin, and a couple of products with beeswax in them, including my homemade lotion bars.

The rash got worse and worse, until finally, powered by Dr. Google’s sage advice, I was reduced to the pharmacy section of Target, where I sought out Triple Paste.  The first ingredient in Triple Paste is Petrolatum and the last is Polysorbate 80, with the ingredients in between not much better.  But I was desperate, and it worked.

For a while, at least.  Cash had one little sore on his bottom, and after the Triple Paste cleared up the rest of the rash, the sore suddenly sprang into a whole patch of blistery, then oozing red sores.  It was terrible.  After trying everything (again), we consulted with Dr. Google and realized it might be a yeast infection–probably fed by my cornstarch as well as the cornstarch in Triple Paste.  So today we’ve been dealing with it (with another pharmacy product, oh joy) and it seems to be getting better.  It’s been a pretty painful, awful experience for poor Cash–and for all of us.  Hopefully it will be over soon.

Tomorrow they go back to school.  Even after months of having every Friday off, their 3-day weekend always feels like a holiday.  This one was especially good and full–probably because we nixed grocery shopping and just went where we wanted, and of course spent lots of time outside.

Hello, spring. Glad to see you back and looking so fine!

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2014 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Crafts for Kids, Making Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.