Ixodes scapularis

Our little nemesis the deer tick. Nicholas may or may not still have a tick head embedded behind his ear (ewwwww!). The ER triage nurse--who took a look at him before he was registered, thus saving the deductible hit until the next time his truculence forces us to take him to the ER--said it was very unlikely they'd go digging considering the location of the bite and that it's impossible to see anything. I know I didn't get it all, but you can't see anything now. I'm actually very good at tick removal, but it does require a modicum of cooperation from the person with the tick.

I'm the designated tick yanker in the family, since I majored in Outside and I've been checking myself for ticks for well over 15 years now. Chris has never yanked a tick in his life. I've lost count of how many I've pulled this year, never mind since I was in college. Rhode Island also has its own tick expert, Dr. Thomas Mather. Back when I was in college, URI decided its researchers should interact with the lowly undergrads, and I took Dr. Mather's course on vector-borne diseases (ie, diseases transmitted by, usually, insects). We learned not only about Lyme but about other fun diseases like babesiosis and hantavirus. (Bubonic plague would be another example of a vector-borne disease.)

A few years after I graduated I spent a year commuting (by ferry!) to a job on Prudence Island, located in Narragansett Bay. At that time, deer ticks were concentrated in the southern portion of Rhode Island and populations were especially high on all the islands: Prudence, Block Island, and the Islands off the Cape (Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket). Lyme Disease is named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut, where it was first identified as an actual disease with an identifiable cause. Now, the ticks are prevalent in the northern part of the state as well. At any rate, something like 98% of the residents of Prudence Island had contracted Lyme at some point. (Previous infection, however, does not provide immunity against subsequent infection.) I can remember one of my first days on the island. I was wearing long pants, tan, and I looked down and saw loads pencil-dot sized somethings on the lower legs of the pants. Those were ticks. Itty bitty tiny ticks. Over the years I've simply come to the conclusion that I must have some sort of natural immunity to Lyme, because I find it hard to believe that I've never been bitten by a Lyme-bearing tick. Actually, while in college I signed up as a study participant for a potential Lyme vaccine (it didn't work)--it paid $200!--but when I heard if I got the disease they'd be drawing fluid from my knees, I said No thanks.

What I'm trying to say is that I am not in the dark about ticks. We do tick checks. I remove them carefully when I find them. I'm familiar with the symptoms. Nowadays most doctors, especially around here, are knowledgeable about the disease, but way back when you'd still find doctors who insisted if there was no rash, it couldn't be Lyme. I am, in other words, a bit ahead of the curve. Our local paper had an article this past week about how the population of deer ticks is much higher this year, because of all the rain. Dr. Mather was quoted quite a bit, including the fact that "he sometimes feels 'like a lone voice in warning people to take precautions. I feel like I'm twisting people's arms to take action.'" He has a website, the address of which the triage nurse gave to Chris (he told her I'd already checked it out). I am not an expert like Dr. Mather. I'm just a mom who deals in the practical business of having children in a tick-laden area.

(All photos from www.tickencounter.org, and I hope they don't get mad at me.)

We should dress to protect ourselves.

Because of course my children will be happy to play outside on a hot summer's day wearing long pants tucked into their socks. The website reminds us that "Ticks start LOW and crawl UP." However, when you're talking about a young child, it's all LOW. I've never found a tick on Nicholas lower than his neck. Usually they gravitate to his head (especially the dog ticks, who probably think they've landed on a dog). I've found plenty of ticks on my own head over the years, and I'm not a young child. I suppose if you're an adult and you never ever bend over while you're outside, this theory will work for you. If you're out in the woods turning over rocks and logs with a group of kids while working at a nature camp, not so much. If you're also a waitress, and your manager insists on scheduling you so that you don't have time to go home and shower before reporting to your second job, you might feel a tick crawling around in your hair while you're taking someone's order. Ask me how I know.

We are also encouraged to landscape our yard so there's a buffer between tick habitat (the shrubby stuff) and the grass.

I tell my kids to stay out of what we call the scrubby. And I suppose we could do this (when?) and then add an electric fence like they use with dogs, to keep the boys inside the grassy perimeter. I suppose I could also have someone treat the edges of the yard to kill ticks and repel deer (which walk right into the yard--we don't often see them, but they eat our bushes and leave footprints), although spraying in the yard where the boys are bound to go makes me nervous. They are boys. They climb the stone walls, they turn over the rocks, they whack plants with sticks. Unless I leash them, I doubt a cute little path of woodchips is going to deter them, no matter what I say.

The website tells us "Deer ticks are not out in the middle of your lawn." Right, so I'm no expert, but last summer I spread a blanket out in the middle of the lawn and a few minutes later saw a tick walk right onto it. I've walked over the lawn to get the mail and come back inside with a tick on my leg. Maybe I just have very, very aggressive ticks around my house.

Here we see a still from a video demonstration on how to soak your clothes with permethrin.

I like this quote from the website: "The EPA states '...There is reasonable certainty that Permethrin-treated clothing poses no harm to infants or children.'" I don't know, "reasonable certainty" just doesn't sound definitive to me. It sounds sort of like an equivocation. Obviously we have to do something, but I'm not sure putting the children in insecticide-soaked clothing is quite the way to go.

So anyway, I guess I'm not good at listening to that lone voice in the wilderness. We walk the line between keeping ourselves informed and living in a bubble soaked with deer repellent and insecticide. I checked in with the pediatrician this morning, and we will just observe Nicholas for symptoms, which I do with the kids from the first mild day on anyway. As our pediatrician said, we can assume that for every tick we find, we've missed three, so he doesn't prescribe antibiotics prophylactically because based on that logic, we'd all be on antibiotics all the time, just in case. I agree with him. And I hope if I do have some sort of natural immunity against Lyme, the kids inherited it. I'm not sure there's anyone left around here who doesn't know someone who's had Lyme Disease.

Too Angry For A Full Post

This day had kicked my ass by 1 pm, but this, this just makes me so angry I could spit. The boys played outside this afternoon (for the last damn time this summer--you'll see why) while I made dinner. They each had a tick just barely embedded when they came in. Vaughan sat there and let me take it out. Nicholas wouldn't stay still, and I didn't get the head. (For those of you who don't have to deal with deer ticks, the head can still transmit Lyme Disease even if the body is gone.) Hoping to avoid another ER hit on the deductible, I called the local walk-in clinic to see if they remove tick heads from squirmy five-year-olds.

"I don't know," said the woman who answered the phone. "Do you have insurance?"

"Yes, but--" (Does it matter if you can't help me?)

"What kind?"

"Does the kind of insurance I have make a difference as to whether you do or do not do this??"

I am so, so, so angry. We didn't want to take Nicholas there if they couldn't help us, but apparently they couldn't even answer the question until I gave them insurance information. I hung up. Chris called later and got someone who was not a complete bitch who said that a hysterical kid and a tiny tick head would be better off at the ER. He's taking Nicholas there now.

And I will get back to banging the pots and pans as I wash the dinner dishes (from the dinner only Vaughan and I ate), ranting about the state of health care in this country.

How Many Kids in a Hammock Does it Take to Draw Blood?

We had a full, fun weekend. Saturday morning Chris took Vaughan to sign up for flag football (more schedules! more paperwork!) and then we went blueberry picking. This morning I made muffins with some of the blueberries.

Actually, I made the batter Saturday afternoon, then stuck it in the fridge overnight. This morning I just had to add the fruit and bake them. Pretty simple, and then we had warm muffins first thing in the morning. I think Nicholas would have picked blueberries all day, but I told him we could come back and pick more in a few weeks, so we don't end up with more blueberries than we can eat. (I know I can freeze them, and I might do that later in the summer.) Blueberries are not my favorite, but I don't mind them in muffins so much. The boys will eat them out of hand.

Chris's boss was hosting a cookout for the office late Saturday afternoon, so we went to that for a couple of hours--we wanted to get Grace home before she melted down on the car ride. The boys got to bounce on a big ol' trampoline. Heads were bumped, but there was no bloodshed. (Paying attention? Foreshadowing.)

Today we visited my sister and her family, which never happens often enough and always makes me happy. We both have three kids, and we live a ninety-minute drive from each other, so it's not always easy to get together. But my boys love seeing their cousins, and I do, too. On the way, though, I learned what Nicholas was trying to say during his first year of life when he screamed non-stop during every car ride: Are we almost there? Are we almost there? My tummy hurts from too much sitting. Are we almost there??

But anyway. Six kids--three girls (ages almost 13, 2, and 8 months) and three boys (9, 7 1/2, and 5). My two-year-old niece is an extremely interesting little person, very expressive, and full of her own unique energy. In other words, she cracks me up. The boys are within four years of each other and Boy Energy just ricochets like a ping pong ball when they're together. And the answer to my title question is four: the four kids in the middle. The hammock was a ship, and the ship capsized, dumping all passengers on the floor. Wild screaming ensued. Vaughan was bleeding impressively from his mouth (I really do need to remember that mouths bleed a lot) and Nicholas had bumped his head. I quickly looked and decided to follow Vaughan to the bathroom (the most injured of my two) while Chris tended Nicholas. Once there I handed Grace to my brother-in-law, and so she started screaming too, even though she could see me a mere foot away. All my children were crying at once, which can kind of make a mama feel frantic. My two-year-old niece was howling, and my nephew looked quite scared that he was going to be blamed for the whole fracas.

In the end, Nicholas had a bump but refused any form of treatment. Vaughan had a swollen lip and a loose tooth, which we all think is a baby tooth, but since I never thought to keep track of which ones have fallen out, I don't really know. I'm going to call the dentist tomorrow and see what he thinks. My niece was fine but continued to cry for quite a while, explaining, "That was really scary. I'm all right, but that was scary." Fair enough. And I gave my nephew a hug and told him accidents happen. And then my sister took the hammock down.

Luckily, it was time for dessert by then. Pudding cake! Do you other children of the 80s remember that? Really, chocolate pudding can cure any bump. And since my sister's family couldn't make Nicholas's rescheduled party, she gave him his birthday present today--Pegasus wings.

Doesn't he just look pleased as anything??

Auntie Jill came up with these herself, with the nice criss-cross elastic that's easy to put on and off. Nicholas loves them, and we both think Auntie Jill is extremely clever.

After dessert the older kids went in the pool while Grace napped in the mei tei. So that is our weekend: full and fun (with sunny weather besides!!). And now I need all the kids to go to sleep already so they're not dragging their heels in the morning when I'm trying to get out the door for swim lessons.

(Thank you for the suggestions on what to pack for lunch and what to pack it in! I am investigating where to buy.)

This Week

* The boys began swim lessons. I've put this off far too long. The summer sessions are sort of a swimming blitz, meeting four days a week for two weeks. We're pulling out of the driveway around 8:30 am. I realize y'all with actual jobs do this every day, and I used to, too, but I have never, ever been a fan of mornings. Luckily the boys really like the lessons. It could have gone either way--Vaughan wears goggles in the shower, for crying out loud, so water doesn't get in his eyes. They like them so much that Nicholas refuses to get out of the pool. Wednesday he pitched a fit. Did I mention that I either hold or wear Grace for the duration of lessons? It's not like I can let her crawl around on the pool deck, and the pool isn't stroller accessible. (It's an indoor pool in a very old building retrofitted with a wheelchair lift.) Better he pitches a fit about getting out than getting in, of course, but even better if he didn't pitch a fit in an echo-y pool area on a slippery pool deck while I'm holding a squirming baby. Just saying.

* Despite this, I'm signing them up for the second session. May as well go with momentum, and if we're going to devote a month of mornings to something indoors, we may as well do it this summer. Maybe the weather will be better by August. Thursday morning as we drove to the pool, my car told me the outdoor temperature was 59 F (15 C). In July?! Today, again, it never made it out of the 60s. I took the kids out to lunch, we took a walk in town along the new(ish?) river walk, we spent quite a while at a playground--and it was perfectly comfortable. It felt like spring, the spring we never had because it was cold and rainy. (However, even when it's sunny out, our yard is presently unbearable--all the wet weather has resulted in gazillions of vicious mosquitoes.)

* We're done at the pool by 10 am, and I pretty much feel like I've done a full day's work by that point. (Did I mention I help Nicholas out of his wet swimsuit and into dry clothes while still holding Grace?) The coffee intake has gone way up this week.

* Grace began eating Cheerios this week. Last time I tried she just ignored them, but this week she expertly grasped them and brought them right to her mouth, exclaiming happily. At this age I am not worrying about nutrition at all; she gets everything she needs from breastmilk. The food is for practice, for sociability, and to gain me a few minutes to eat my own dinner. Now that I know she can handle Cheerios, I can bring some when we go out to eat so she doesn't grab for all my food feel left out.

* She is also pulling herself up on whatever's handy, occasionally trying to take a few steps while holding on, and more often forgetting that she has to hold on and landing on her bum or flat on her back. Several times a day she bangs or bumps some part of her body while exploring, wails in outrage, gets scooped up and given a drink of magic mama milk, and then, rejuvenated, goes right back to doing whatever she was doing when she banged or bumped herself. She is incredibly active. It's a good thing there are four of us in the house to keep track of her.

* Also this week I started poking around the web for hints on making re-usable sandwich and snack wrappers, since I'll be packing Vaughan a lunch every day in a couple of months. Right now when I pack us a picnic lunch I'm using a big cooler bag and often family-size containers, such as a big yogurt container full of enough grapes for the three of us. I'm going to need smaller containers for him. I use wax paper sandwich bags for sandwiches, but was wondering if I could come up with something better. I'm really not sure. The more I Googled, the less confident I became that I could find a fabric that is leak-proof, relatively air-tight (so the food doesn't get stale), and still food safe. So many plastics really aren't. It's all making me dizzy.

* Speaking of lunches, it's a nut-free school--all nuts, as I understand it. Mulling over what to feed the kid who requests pb&j for lunch five days out of seven.

* My alternate title for this post was "Hectic." Life feels suddenly hectic at the moment. Not in a bad way; just in a sudden and surprising way.

Some Finished Knitting

(Thank you for the comments on the cloth book! I can't wait to start another one, yet wait I will. The crafting, it goes slow around here...)

I thought perhaps the problem with the knitting mojo was that I was expecting too much from it. Perhaps a small project, one I could easily complete, would work out better. And maybe with some really nice yarn, such as the skeins of Malabrigo worsted I've had for a while. I searched Ravelry for something small to do with Malabrigo and came across A Better Bucket (available here and on Ravelry). It ended up being a little big for a bucket, but just about perfect for a fisherman-style hat.

Look at that background! Geez. Let's move outside,
shall we?

As soon as I finished it, I realized that I would of course have to make another one, a little bit smaller.

Much better background, don't you think?

Grace is so pleased with her bucket, and when I stood us in front of the mirror she looked from me to the reflection and back again, grinning. I'm not sure how long I can get away with us being all matchy-matchy, so I'm going to enjoy it. (This girl baby thing is so much fun!! I never knew.)

"I am so cute in this hat that it might be dangerous
to take me out in public."

So, the details. I used just under one skein of Malabrigo worsted (colorway Vaa) for my hat and US size 7 needles. For Grace's, I cast on 84 stitches, made the brim a little shorter, and started the decreases (which I also modified) after 5.5 inches. The full mods for the baby bucket are on the Ravelry project page. Oh, I also skipped the provisional cast-on, which has been the bane of my knitting life recently. I used my regular cable cast-on and when it came time to fold the brim under and knit it together, I picked up (not pick-up-and-knit, just pick up) stitches along the cast-on. It worked just fine that way; I have a nice, neat seam and so I don't mind if it's visible when the brim is turned up.

Once I started these hats I just couldn't stop knitting them until they were done. It's a cute, clever pattern. Now we'll see if the mojo is back to stay, or if it was just visiting for a while.

The First Cloth Book

(Note to my sister-in-law: I’m not sure how often you check in here, but if you happen to be reading this, just move along. You’ll spoil the surprise in September.)

So, this was my first try at a cloth book, intended as a first birthday present for Chris's nephew, and overall I’m pretty pleased with it. What follows is neither a tutorial nor a recipe, because really, if you can sew, you can make this. I’m going to explain my thought process, though, in case anyone else wants to do something similar.

My first thought was to keep it simple and washable. So while sewn-on shapes of different fabrics might have provided some textural interest (for the baby, I mean), I kept it to cotton and flannel. I didn’t want to mess with potentially non-washable stuff like wool felt, but if you’re not concerned about that so much, a lot could be done with the fabric. I focused on shape and color instead, again keeping it simple. I decided to use three rectangles, for a total of six pages. The boys and I discussed it and agreed bright, mainly solid colors for the pages. We found some fabric that came in many colors in one swirly pattern that worked as a solid (I hope you know what I mean, because I can’t really explain that). For this first book I decided to use the red, blue, and orange.

Inside view, showing orange and red background fabric. See how
the red heart on the orange page picks up the red background on the
facing page? That was on purpose.

Next I got a big piece of paper and folded it down to various sizes to figure out what size I’d like the book to be. When I settled upon a size, I added 1/2” all around to account for the seam allowance and came up with 13 1/2" by 8". That’s the center page, which is orange. Each rectangle is 1/2" longer than the one inside it, so the red one is 14" by 8" and the blue one (which serves as a cover) is 14 1/2" by 8". This is so the pages nest inside each other. For each page I cut two rectangles of the fabric and one rectangle of a basic cream-colored flannel to use as interfacing (an idea I got from Amy Karol’s book). This gives the pages a bit more sturdiness, but not too much.

Then, the fun part—I went through my fabric and cut out shapes and pictures, then played around with placement. When I came up with something I liked, I pinned it down, always making sure I liked it as a whole, which means I repeatedly stacked the pages in order and flipped through the book, making sure it worked.

Last page and inside back cover

Again, I wasn’t going for overload. I’m kind of a keep-it-simple Mama. I knew I wanted to have the first initial of the baby’s name on the cover, though.

Front cover, with the baby's first initial

Then I tackled each page individually, using thread that coordinated with the page’s color (rather than trying to switch for each piece I was sewing on). I thought about various ways to handle this part and finally decided a zig-zag over the raw edge along with a straight stitch inside the edge, to provide reinforcement. I expect some fraying, but hopefully not too much, and I thought this would be “cleaner” overall than trying to fold under the edges.

Inside the front cover; circle of friendly children's faces and a cute piggy and snail

The only exception was the muslin patch on the back on which I wrote happy birthday, the date, and signed our names (the birthday boy’s name and the date have been Photoshopped out).

This photo is badly lighted for some reason,
but the patch bugs me so who cares about the lighting?

I wanted to double the muslin anyway, and then it stretched while I was sewing it and the patch is crooked and it bugs me, but not enough to redo the whole page and besides Chris said it was fine. But let it be known: it bugs me.

Moving on. Once the pieces were sewn on to both sides of a page, I sewed the individual pages together with the interfacing in the middle, stacking it thus: flannel, one rectangle right side up, second rectangle right side down. I left a hole for turning, etc, then topstitched.

Happy frogs and silly monkeys!

Then I changed the thread color and did the next page, and then the next. Finally it was time to sew the whole thing together, which was a little daunting. I went to my local sewing store in search of a heavy-duty needle and was directed to a top-stitching needle. I wanted to sew from the inside out (ie, with the orange page facing me, not the cover) to make sure I didn’t mess up that scene, so I carefully piled everything up, drew a chalk line, and, using a slightly longer stitch, prayed the needle would go through cleanly. It did (phew!).

The center scene. I'm pretty proud of this. It was sewn down in layers:
first the sail, then the boat, then the waves.

And I am extremely tickled because I used orange thread through the needle and light blue bobbin thread, so it looks good inside and out.

I’ll be making one for Grace soon, using blue, purple, and green pages. I have some other ideas to try, not big changes, just little things. More or less, this is exactly the kind of book I had in mind, and I’m happy with it.

Coming soon: Some finished knitting. Could the mojo be back?

Remember the Ladies

From Abigail Adams, Letter to John Adams (1776)

I long to hear that you have declared an independancy--and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

(Who do you think was home taking care of the kids--four at that time, in Abigails's case--while the men were fighting for independence? The ladies, of course.)

Happy Independence Day.