Whoaaaaa that schoolyear hit FAST
The skin apparently may play a much larger part in almost all forms of allergies, but for me, it's the real shining point. Meaning that during pollen season, I not only need to wear a mask and cover my eyes... I need to cover pretty much everything.
I think sometimes I look like the invisible man.
Also, pollen tracks on clothes and then smears all over various surfaces in the house, which can be a real bother in its own right. As such, I have clothes that I remove immediately upon coming home. Until recently that has meant a hoodie and a second pair of pants in addition to gloves and hat and whatnot.
That's a pain in the ass on warm days. And our blessed Juneuary is almost through. So I am developing a new lighter "outdoor" wardrobe
But of course i don't live alone...
Alas, it might also get on my neurodelicious 6-almost-7 year old who does NOT accept the idea of changing her clothes any time except bedtime and who reallyreally DOES NOT believe in baths with the fervor of a recently converted atheist! My charming 6-almost-7 year old who otherwise is a very normal 6-almost-7 year old likes to roll around in grass, tear it up in little pieces, and play games with her friends like "pretend you're a baby cheetah and I'll come throw grass on you to feed you"
And when's she's overstimulated (which can happen) she likes to run into a wooded area and sit in the grass and contemplate.
So...
that's fun.
We had an hour long standoff a few weeks ago, because I had told her that if she rolled in grass she would need to change her clothes after she got home (the dress was very tangibly muddy as wellthis time).
She had rolled in grass.
When we entered the house, I posited that she now needed to change.
This was... unacceptable.
We stood in the stairwell and she howled at the top of her lungs for several eternities. I occasionally excused myself to go to Andrew's office (he was not there at teh time) and breathe a little exasperation out because I honestly did not know whether we'd ever get to leave the stairwell and I really really wanted to just go upstairs and have our afternoon already.
Eventually I convinced her that we would have time to wash her current dress and put it back on before daddy got home if we hurried. Eventually (she was probably hungry and realizing her kindle time was going to evaporate) she agreed and then it was fine and she put on another dress and said "we should just do this all the time" and the dress was indeed clean and dry by dinnertime. Phew!
It sucks being lame mommy with lame hypersensitivities. I don't know how moms on chemo and the like handle it. It's a bit... tiring.
Then again, another day that we had yet another standoff situation that ended a little differently. She was yelling about how she wanted a mommy who didn't have allergies and I said I wished she could have that too. The sorta conversation that you'd expect...
She then said - still crying - that she wished she had all the allergies that I had so she'd understand what not to do.
Damn that gave my heart so many contortions. The bittersweetness of that sentiment for such a young girl.
I told her that I would never ever wish that on her, but what a sweet compassion kiddo she was made me feel so amazed. And that made her feel good and things got better until the next day's howling match about clothes changing and grassiness.
I love my sweet sensitive kiddo. And, I'll be very happy when it's fall again.
But in the meantime, we've largely compromised on her changing her hoodie after being outdoors and she gets kind of a sponge bath that involves her standing in the tub a few times a week followed by spraying her hair down and brushing it out... We do... what we can anyways.
And survive! We've got about 3 weeks until summer camps start up so... so far working from home and watching Allan would rely on a heck lot more kindle time than we thought would be good. Allan asked why she couldn't use it all day and Andrew said it would rot her brain. So there we are:she clearly accepted this reasoning and decided that a moderate use of kindle was wise. And/or she let her head crash into her arms and wailed "you are making me sad, I do not want this!!! STOP!!!" But I'm sure it'll all work out in the end! My strategy so far has been to just postpone lunch (she never plays kindle before lunch) as late as possible and thus forestall all battles and disagreements entirely.
But man, I'm exhausted already and it's just been one and a half days. We've played several rousingly complex games of hide and seek, we've created art, learned magic tricks, traded off reading chapter for site-word book, we've made some foods, we've listened to podcasts, we've done some drawing. And an outschool class that mostly went well other than some kind of epic artistic meltdown over a flub up in her drawing project (the teacher gets so many points for bringing her back after she crumpled up her paper and decried drawing for all eternity). Followed by one about cats that was far more her speed.
And off she goes to Pam's. But it's not exactly a vacation here,since she's off to my mom's so that I can get a variety of shots. Nonetheless, there's a little break of rain and that counts for plenty!
Happy Summer! I hear the sun will set again in a month or two!
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