Visitor's Day

Yesterday was Visitor's Day at Jessica's sleepover camp (Moshava). I was sooo excited to see her! I packed up some of her favorite foods, ceasar salad, sesame noodles, and cookie sticks. I brought her another birthday package, a little something from my mom, a card from my MIL, and designer cookies from my awesome friend Adina... except oops... forgot to take a picture! They were so pretty! Hot pink ipod cookies! What could be better than pink ipod birthday cookies for a 12 year old? Well, last year's were really good too actually... juicy handbag cookies.....

And now that we have that picture up, let's compare it to this year's so we can see how old my little girl has gotten....

This is her this year....

And this is how you know she is really an almost teenager...

Definitely from this one....

She saw Emily's new cell phone and sat down and used it for an hour..... at least she was talking to her aunt. She hadn't texted or called anyone in 3 weeks! Can't blame her, that is a long time for a kid these days...

It was pouring most of the day, but that didn't stop Alyssa. She kept running around in the rain. Especially cuz she loved this swing....

and the big kid on the end.... who is Emily's age but friends with Will and apparently is Alyssa's new crush. She was almost as excited to see him as Jessica, and he isn't even at camp for the summer. He is at home hanging out at our house a lot. Alyssa ran around with him for hours and he and Emily took her out in the rain to play.....

This is by far one of my favorite pictures...

Not because my kids and nephew look so cute but because if you look closely you will see that the mattress is so thin that you can barely see it, and it looks like they are just sitting on metal.

And the crazy thing is that apparently Jessica has the "best" mattress in the whole bunk! All her friends said so! It's the best half inch mattress they've ever slept on!

I can't wait till she gets home to her pillow top mattress.

Camp is funny like that.

This, Believe It Or Not,Took Me All Day To Write.

I have no time to do a full blog today. I have 3 kids home. Jessica who is faking (as usual) and doing a very bad job of it. Will who had a teensy tinsy drop of fever this morning but is fine and definitely going to school tomorrow. Or else. And Alyssa who still has a terrible runny nose but nothing else. Poor baby. But seriously where the hell does it all come from????

I did get one thing accomplished today!!!! It is major. Jessica is afraid to be alone in the house. Not that I ever ask her to be or expect her to be, but she is almost 11 1/2 and my babysitters for her when she was little were 12. And I mean sometimes when you just wanna run out for a second or go to a neighbor's house for a few minutes it would be nice to do it alone. Well today was a beautiful day outside and I really wanted to run. I havn't been able to since sunday because of all these sickies.

Well after I put Alyssa down for a nap today I asked Jessica if she would mind staying home with Will and sleeping Alyssa so I can get a quick run in. At first she said no, but Will said to her, "Aw, come on. You can do it." So Jessica said if I take my phone I can go for half an hour." I made sure she was really ok with it and then I was off. I am usually an 11 min. 20 sec. mile on the treadmill so I decided to only run 3 miles and told her not to worry if I was a couple minutes late.

IT FELT SO SO SO GOOD to get out of that sick house. ALONE!!!!! I did a quick run in just under 30 min. and felt great! So proud of Jessica!!! Thanks sweetie! Love ya! When I got home she said, "Oh I was just about to call you. You could have run a little further. I'm totally fine."

My Worst Nightmare....

I wish that as I was writing this Not Me Monday, it really could have not been me, but unfortunately it is my life and it is happening....

We had some uninvited visitors this weekend....

It was not a skunk, or a mouse, or a stray dog or cat...

It was something I have been dreading forever. Something that just hearing about makes my skin crawl and my body itch....

I can't even bring myself to type the word on this page.

OK, here goes....

Jessica had lice.

This is the first and hopefully the last time I ever have to do this.

Sunday, at around noon, I noticed Jessica scratching the side of her head as she stood next to me at my computer desk. I was like, "Ew Jess, why are you scratching your head like that. That's so gross. Can you not stand so close to me if you are gonna do that?"

(ooh, that sounds kinda harsh....)

Then I looked at her again, and said, "Jess, let's go outside. I wanna look at your hair."

Sure enough she had tons of nits, and I was like totally freaking out. I made her stay outside while I checked Emily and made Jon go to Walgreen's to buy the lice shampoo. Emily's head was clean ( I checked 3 times), and so was Will's and Alyssa's and Jon's. My mom came over and checked my hair and said I was clean too. Phew.

Yeah, so I spent my sunday which started off nice and leisurely and stay-in-your-pajamas-till-12 kinda day, cleaning Jessica's hair, washing everything we own and vacuuming the house from top to bottom. I sprayed the carpets with that special spray, took everything in her room down to the laundry room, washed all the coats and spent 3 hours picking all the freaking nits out of her hair!

At 11 pm last night, Jessica was crying, begging me to let her go to sleep. I didn't want her to go in her bed till I found every single nit (this was hair check for 3 hours take 2). Finally I gave in. I tied a Target bag around her hair and then a shower cap and put her to bed. Of course she couldn't sleep well because she felt like her head was in a cheap diaper, so she woke up early monday morning. After I took the other kids to school, I started nit check #3. I found a teeny louse, freaked out and shampooed her hair again. (I also dyed my hair cuz someone told me that lice hate dyed hair... OK FINE, and my roots were showing, but it seemed like the timing was good) Anyway, then we proceeded with nit check #4. We spent the whole day until dinner time combing through her hair. I started with it all up in a ponytail and slowly took out a few centimeters of hair at a time. I was almost blind when we finally finished. Jessica's hair was beautiful and shiny and lighter in color for some reason. I told her that she has the most beautiful bug infested hair I have ever seen!!!

Anyway, I think we got them all. I have yet to see when we start nit check #5 tomorrow. And, I am still in the middle of washing everything we own (comforters take forever to dry!!!).

But, you should all know, that after ignoring my other 3 kids most of the day, and my husband who was working from home and in a fowl mood, I decided that while he picked up some take out for himself and Jessica, I would let Alyssa help me make the picky kids some dinner. If you can really call it dinner..... We made french toast, french fries, tomato slices and watermelon. OK, now if you are a normal person, you might be vomiting that I let my kids eat these 4 things together for dinner. Or you might be thinking that I am the worst Mom and am giving my kids the worst dinner in the world. But, Will ate more than he usually does and Emily told me that it was a very delicious dinner.

Anyway, so Alyssa helped me make the french toast. She helped me crack the eggs, and she blended them with a fork all by herself. I added the milk and she got all excited. I showed her how to put the bread into the mixture.... and she went to town! OH MY GOD! She slapped that bread into the egg mixture at least 14 times. Then she finger painted the microwave, my cell phone, and the whole counter! That's when I decided I had had enough help. I washed her off and sent her on her merry way...... and she galloped out of the kitchen looking for something else to destroy............

Girls Night Out

Jessica has a good friend from L.A. in town. She's been here for 2 weeks, and since she is leaving on wednesday, I decided that I'd take them and a couple other friends out last night. I left the younger 3 with the hubby and took them out for dinner and then Navy Pier. They were really cute and totally teenager-like.

I was very responsible and did not charge my phone before we went. Luckily Jessica's friend has a phone, so I took pictures with her camera. Notice I was only worried about the pictures not the fact that we were out late and parents couldn't call me.... like I said, very responsible.

(*It was very low battery, but in my defense I did get some calls early on, and then it finally died right when we were leaving, but wouldn't take pictures the whole time :( so sad.)













Anyway, by the time they went on 3 rides, got dippin dots, and picked out what they wanted to buy it was 10:00. There was a line of about 15 people trying to pay their parking fee in that machine thing, but it wasn't working so I just left. I paid the security guard, who apparently rolled it up pretty small and put it in her pocket (I think I really paid the security guard... damn I should have negotiated a better price). Oh well. They had a really good time and I was happy to take them out for a special night.

On the way home, if I didn't know better, I would have thought that somebody spiked her friend's can of soda because this girl was craaaaazy! I have never seen her like this before....


Maybe one too many rides on the ferris wheel....

Not Me Monday (well, not really)

It's time for Not Me Monday again, but since I suck at writing in the negative unlike someone I know who talks in the negative all the time especially around my husband..... I will save you all from the migraine that I have right now and write normally.

Guess who went up to Camp Moshava yesterday to visit her daughter ??????

Good guess. It was me.





It was so great to see Jessica! It always amazes me how beautiful she looks at camp, when I feel so nasty and dirty there. What is it about that sandy dust that just gets all over you?

Anyway, Jessica is having a great summer. We hung in her cabin and she showed us around a bit. She is so neat at camp (much neater than at home). Her clothes were folded perfectly and everything was so organized. I was so proud of her! Her bed looked so comfy and cozy. She had all her letters hung on her wall, and posters that she doodled on taped on the wall, and all her pillows and stuff on her bed. She even graffitied her bunk bed!

The cabin was pretty clean... for camp that is.

My nephew's cabin was the complete opposite. Ew... the boys cabins were crowded and nasty and stinky.... but they're loving it! My nephew was pretty dirty... but he thinks he's really tan.

My other nephew didn't look that dirty, and is also having a great time, and is also living in nastiness a crowded bunk. Thank god I only have Jessica there right now. The girl's bunks are like hotels compared to the boys.... Ew....... I know. enough.

Anyway, the camp for the most part is much nicer than when I went there. They made a new lake for boating and put a water trampoline and slide in it. They have a floor hockey court, a new basketball court, tennis courts, new baseball field and bleachers, 2 zip lines, new pool, new air conditioned gym. We had none of that.

I brought Jessica some cookies made by my friend Adina. They were so pretty! Here's a picture:

She really liked them a lot. Almost as much as I did!

We went boating... Jon took them row boating, I took them paddle boating. It was really fun!

When it was time to go, Jessica just walked away because she didn't want to watch us leave, so I gave her one last hug and ran back to the car. Emily and Jon were hurt that Jessica didn't give an official goodbye, but I'm proud of her for knowing what is best for her. For knowing that it would be too painful to watch us drive away. It's so hard to say goodbye.

On the drive home, Emily informed us that she was totally ready to go to sleepover camp, and can't wait to go next summer.... I'm about to start crying just thinking about my 2 kids away at camp, but I have a whole year to worry about that.

Random Things...

Jessica is leaving for camp today. A whole month without her... so sad. Last year when she left, I was a crying mess. This year I am not going to cry. I know how much fun she is going to have. I know she is going to be happy.... so I am happy and excited for her. But, I will definitely miss seeing that face of hers. And I know I'm going to miss having her around. She is totally hilarious and makes me laugh all the time. Like on friday night when she laid her head on my back and said she could hear my brain. I said to her, "Don't you mean my heart?" And she answered, "No. Your brain.... and you don't even know how much you think about me."

Or when she was talking to Jon about taking Will to a Blackhawk's game and said, "You better take an extra pair of pants and underwear for him for when the buzzer goes off..." Hahahahaha.

She is so much fun to be with lately! The best part about her going to camp is that the camp posts pictures of the kids on their website. So every day we get to look through a hundred pictures of our kids and our friends kids. We can send them bunk notes and of course I'll be mailing her some fun packages especially for her birthday in July!

Anyway, so last night around 8, I was taking my kids to my Bubby's house (grandmother), when I saw a guy run out of his house followed by a police officer and into his car. The guy sped away and the cop followed. Responsible me, with all 4 kids in the car, followed down the block and while waiting to make a left turn saw 3 more police cars drive by! I drove around the block so I could see what was going on, and didn't see them, so I turned on a small street giving up on the whole scene and there in my friend's driveway was the guy and 2 police men!!!!! I guess they cornered him and he turned into their driveway to get out and run cuz his car was slanted in their driveway and the door was open. They were literally right next to her car and had him in handcuffs!!!! Crazy stuff!

Also, I heard a rumor that our pool was struck by lightning! I guess it must have happened on friday during that crazy monsoon. I actually have pictures from that day. My kids and I were picking up bagels at Dunkin Donuts to bring over to a shiva house (house of mourning... the mom that died) with the lunch that I made, and it suddenly started pouring while I was in the drive thru. I opened the window to place my order and me and my car got soaked. When I got to the window to get my order and pay, neither I nor the cashier wanted to open our windows. Finally I opened mine, she opened hers and she quickly threw it at me, took my credit card, and closed her window. It was actually pretty hilarious! We got home and the streets were flooded. As I was putting the car into park it started hailing, and Jessica started freaking out, and climbed into the back of my car! It was actually kind of scary. It was hitting my windshield pretty hard. It was just an insane amount of rain!

I mean, this was 10 AM!

What else can I share with you guys? Hmmmm.....

Guess who's going to see Britney Spears in September? Me! I know everyone hates her, but I am really excited to see her... just hope it doesn't get canceled and that maybe she'll actually sing at this one!

That's all for now....

Oh wait, a link to a response to a comment made yesterday.