This is Mama Love

It's a busy time of year. There's Halloween, which means parties and cobbling costumes together, Luka's birthday is coming up, harvests are rolling in and its the last chance to preserve anything if it's going to be done.

Yesterday turned out to be more hectic than I had planned for. Wendy and Pete hosted Pumpkin Day at their barn, plus Evan had a birthday party to go to, and I decided I was going to make a pumpkin chili as well as some homemade applesauce to bring to Wendy's. I've been making applesauce for freezing from apples I picked up last weekend from Lesser Farms out in Dexter. I bought two bushels of Ida Reds for the sauce (I prefer Jonathan's, but I missed the season), a peck of Granny Smiths for cooking (they became an apple crisp), and peck and a half of these delicious apples called Arkansas Black that are dark as plums and super crispy and sweet in a green perfumy way. Soooo good. I also bought a gallon of their honey and a hunk of beeswax that I'm going to transform into votive candles.

From Lesser Farms I had driven my kids and E and O out to Rodgers Corners, a family farm out near Chelsea that we go to every year for our pumpkins. I just have to say that every one of us were munching on an apple varietel as we left one farm for another when Fiona APPLE came on the radio. I kid you not.

So yesterday, I had multiple projects going on when I received a call from my neighbor that their child that Luka plays with had lice. I've been battling the lice monster with Luka, and I had treated him last week for it. I've been checking him every day to see if I should reshampoo him, and sure enough, after the call I checked and he was reinfested. Or, infested still. I have no idea but I am sick of those little fuckers.

So, here we go again. Wash his hair, coat him with Nix, wash again. Make sure nothing's burning on the stove. Plead with him to sit still so I can comb through his hair, he resists, cries, complains. Get all the laundry downstairs and get all that going--pillows, sheets, stuffed animals. Make sure the main bedding is done first so I can get his bed remade before we go out. May as well clean the bathroom since there are telltale signs that my no-standing-and-peeing rule has been violated. Take out the laundry from the day before when he stood in the hallway and threw up because the cough that he has sets off his gag reflex. He had been covered in vomit, it was all over the floor, splashed on doors, trim and walls. I had him step onto a towel, get undressed, wipe off his feet so he can walk straight into the shower while I start the laundry and clean up.

So last night, we get in late. We had fun. I was exhausted. I had to decompress at the party after rushing around all day and thankfully when I picked Evan up from his party and held my breath as I checked his scalp AGAIN he was still clean. If he weren't that may have sent me over the edge. So Pumpkin Day was a nice little break from it all. I could sit, talk, dance, eat, drink and that was all I had to do. And I did it.

Four a.m., Luka calls me and he had puked all over his bed while sleeping, so he was matted with puke on one side of his head. So I get up, get Luka up and just shut the door to his room because there is no way I was dealing with that at that time of night. Thankfully, it was all contained, and the kind of situation that's going to have to have an initial decontamination in the backyard before it goes to the laundry.

So I wash off the little goober, give him the hard stuff cough medicine that has codeine in it, and get him settled in my bed and rub his back to get him relaxed until the medicine takes effect. He falls asleep, his little head on my pillow, still with a faint aroma of vomit. And I think to myself--I will battle lice for you, clean up gallons of throw up and contend with all the other bodily fluids, too.

It won't always be like this, but until then I will just keep doing it. This is mama love.