A Change Will Do You Good

The last few days have been tough weatherwise. Unless you're lucky enough to live in some enviably sunny spot of the world, or are able to adequately entertain little people inside because you live in a gym or something, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not now, then at some point during the winter months.

I know there are probably people who are good parents and caregivers who don't take their children outside for running, screaming, and generally releasing of pent up energy, but I cannot imagine how. Especially with preschoolers. The bounce house, although a great rescue sometimes, isn't always up to the task for yet another day.

So despite the fact that Happy Meals are not the most nutritious dining option, and the toys in them any more are junk, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and go to the McDonald's Play Place. Granted, I would try another option if there were one close by, but you go with what you've got.

It is beyond me why all the government funded, public recreation for children in my area has to 1)be outside or 2)involve a team sport. There is no such thing as an indoor playground, except for the one at McDonald's. Out of all the big, government buildings with large unused areas of space, no one has ever considered a bit of indoor recreation for the little people. What a waste.

So when I felt at my wit's end before my little people even arrived the other day, I called their mom and said let's meet at McDonald's. We all needed some play time.

Last winter we spent a lot of enjoyable Friday afternoons on the indoor playground. E2 was too small (she's still technically too young) to go through all of the different levels by herself. Since parents are allowed inside, although I can count on one finger the number of parents I've ever seen inside (and that was at a birthday party), we all played. I helped E2 up the steps and onto the different levels. We came down the slide like a bobsled team, with my legs as the sled. It was loads of fun for everyone.

I wasn't sure how it was going to play out with E3 joining the ranks, but I figured we'd cross that bridge when we came to it.

The bigger girls stormed the playground like a fortress in need of toppling. They had to be called back down the stairs to remove their boots and coats because they were just too eager to get going. Before baby and I had our things settled, E2 was popping out the end of the slide -- she'd grown taller over the summer and didn't need Ma's help.

After just a minute or two in the role of spectators, E3 and I decided to enter the fray. Ma got her workout for the day, let me tell you. E3 is weighing in at about 20 pounds, and I lugged her up the stairs like a mama chimp toting her baby. She was delighted with the views and the tunnels. The bigger girls crawled over and around her as they made their mad way around and around. Screaming was allowed, even encouraged, as long as it didn't get too out of hand.

The other children who came through while we were there initially gave me a funny look, but after our first meeting pretty much let it go. I was delighted that the girls remembered to ask the names of their playmates, and when the first little girl encountered the baby and knew her name, I figured they had introduced themselves as well.

We played for an hour before we took a potty break and had lunch. It was another hour before we loaded up and headed home. E3 was asleep in her car seat before I got her in the car and neither of the other two made it home awake, although both woke and then went back to sleep after we got home.

Other than a bit of ache in my shoulders (yes, I'm pretty sure it had to do with E3, because we made at least three trips through the playground, even though we mainly sat in the treehouse portion and played), even I felt better after the outing.

So once again I have to remind myself that the extra effort is worth it, not only for the sanity of little people, but for me. Sure, it would be easier and cheaper to stay home, but sometimes that just isn't the best choice. Like a lot of things in life, from socializing with friends to exercising, a little effort can carry a tremendous reward and make everyone involved feel better about life. Like my earlier discovery about having fun with adult friends, it shouldn't come as a surprise to me. (And yes, we've been socializing regularly with adults and enjoying it tremendously.)

Looks like, new little sister or not, to survive the winter we're going to have to resume some sort of outing schedule. Maybe the weather will allow us more options than McDonald's, but I think we'll take what we can get and have fun with it. I think that applies to more than just a Ma and three Es as well. Sometimes, a bit of change does everybody a lot of good.

Look Out It's Cold and Flu Season

My second winter as a stay-at-home grandma to E1, when she was finally walking and getting into things, I got a quick refresher in what it really means to "enjoy" the cold and flu season.

E1 quickly earned the nickname of "Typhoid Mary," if that gives a clue what the winter was like.

Before that winter, I don't remember the last time I had really been sick, especially with a stomach bug.

Little children, you see, are a breeding ground for all kinds of ailments. They seem to attract them like a magnet with metal filings. Just let them walk through a room where someone is sick, and they will be sick as well. Not only that, but they will share it with their closest caregivers, probably before anyone realizes they are sick, and then be better before the adults around them.

It's a completely unfair arrangement.

After all, it wasn't me that played with the toy someone else had played with, then put my hand in my mouth or rubbed my nose or eyes. Why did I have to be sick? Of course, there is no way to follow them around and sanitize their hands every time they pick up anything, or spray everything with disinfectant before they touch it. And it wouldn't be healthy anyway. If we could manage to do that, then they would never begin to build up the natural resistance that will eventually mean they don't catch everything that goes around.

After three winters with E1, I'm hoping that my resistance to the childhood ailments they may pick up has improved, but I still haven't forgotten that winter and face the season with a bit of dread.

The first sign of bad news came in with the new year, when we were celebrating at church with appetizers and desserts and a lot of singing. It was a good time, right up until the time it wasn't. I hadn't had a stomach bug in what seemed forever and the last time I'd thrown up it was from too much alcohol, not an unfriendly virus. All the same, I recognized the signs of impending doom. We made it home before I was hit full throttle and I spent the next two days near a porcelain throne with nothing staying down other than Coca Cola. Talk about kicking your new year's weight loss off with a bang.

That was just the beginning though. By February, when her Momma was in the hospital delivering E2, she had brought home another bug that had us all sick. I was so sick I couldn't be there when the baby was born, and, of course, I was babysitting anyway. That one turned out to be RSV, which research says we all pretty much catch repeatedly in our lives. Of course the first time is the worst and not only E1 had it, but within a week of delivery E2 as well. All the adults in their lives were also sick and it seemed to last forever. Mom and baby spent four days in the hospital. Ma had extended child care. Even now the girls cannot take the nasal flu vaccine because they wheeze when they're sick. Not something to mess around with.

Last winter paled in comparison, yet still I feel I catch more than my fair share as an adult -- too many little hands touching things and then little faces, little mouths, little eyes and noses. Then they come to me for kisses, or a sip of my drink or a nibble of my food, or simply want to be close, and there's no way to say no to those faces. There's no room in my heart to worry about what unnamed virus they may be bringing me that I won't know they have until long after they've shared it with me. For little people who generally must be practically forced to share, they are incredibly generous when it comes to the ailments they collect.

So as the temperature falls and we huddle indoors recycling the same old air, I up my dosage of vitamin C, echinacea and zinc, use a nasal spray and keep hand sanitizer handy. I know it won't save me. It's like putting on a life vest when you fall in an ocean full of sharks.

Something is sure to get me, but I darned sure don't want to drown.

Stir Crazy and It's Only November

I'm not sure I can survive the winter.

Not emotionally, at least.

Take away one day of working out -- two hours of time with adult people away from those who reach my waist or less -- and I'm a basket case. OK, take away my workout and instead give me two miserable weather days cramped up with three children in a small house where our most entertaining option is a game of GIANT BABY (don't ask), and I'm losing it.

OK, so you had to ask. Giant baby involves me hold the baby, who isn't yet vertical all the time, up at waist level or higher in a vertical position and chasing the older girls in circles through the house. The baby loves it. She laughs and squeals. The girls love it. They laugh and squeal at a frequency that might shatter crystal. The dogs think someone is getting hurt and they get nervous and bristly. It makes my head and back hurt.

Yes, for two days the four of us have spent eight hours together with nothing more interesting to look at than the television. Papi comes in on the tail end of the day for his dose of fun and I want to run screaming from the house as soon as supper is on the table.

Tuesday, my daughter noted my frazzled look and told me she'd buckle them in. I went back to the house with tired tears seeping from my eyes.

I love my granddaughters. Please, don't get me wrong. I would not send them to anyone else for daycare. I can't imagine the days without them. But I'm programmed to be outside and they have spent so much time with me that their programming likewise is get outdoors. Chase a leaf, splash in a puddle, ride a bike, go for a hike, drag brush, pretend to be birds and soar around the yard. Run, squeal, move. Inside, well, we're all a bit stir crazy and it comes out by the end of the day.

We all need an outlet for our energy that doesn't involve running in circles around the butcher block island, dumping out or picking up all the toys in the playroom, or simply torturing one another out of frustration.

Last winter I bought a bounce house that will fit quite tidily on the front porch. Unfortunately, it's been too cold or wet to deploy it. It will also fit in the playroom, thank God.

So to fight the frustration we cleared the center of the playroom floor, piling toys anywhere they would fit,shoved the pack and play against the book case, and engaged the bounce house. Even E3 loved it, although she had to content herself with mainly watching the other girls as I wouldn't let her inside while they were bouncing. Her glee when I enforced a break and let her crawl inside, however, was thorough.

Although I didn't get the fix I needed, and had to put up with the rearranging, refereeing and noise of the big blower, I realized it was a small price to pay for lowering the overall discontent in the house. Once again I had to remind myself that I'm the adult, and I'm the one who has to figure out how to make things better, and that even if I seem to make things better only for the little people, my sacrifice will be rewarded with a bit more sanity.

So I guess I'll be firing up the little bounce house until the girls get tired of it, which may not take long as a summer of outings has introduced them to bigger and better bounce houses with climbing walls and slides. Yep, that was my fault. I let them go through the adult sized obstacle course a few too many times. But those are also available and it could be that I decide the investment, if I can find a place for it, is well worth it.

While the rural county where I live has come a long way in developing outdoor recreation, our indoor opportunities, especially for preschoolers, are pretty much nonexistent, despite some large governmental lobbies that I could see housing an indoor playground quite handily. My husband says the noise would be a bother to the workers, but I think closed doors would take care of that and, having worked in one of those buildings, I know there's not a lot that needs quiet that doesn't get a closed door already.

So instead I'll be taking advantage of good old McDonald's and its monster indoor playground. But first I have to find a way to avoid the Happy Meals, because face it, they have the nutritional value of the box in which they are packed, plus a piece of junk toy to boot. Once that hurdle is cleared, I think I'll start scheduling a weekly McDonald's run -- maybe for ice cream? I'm sure toting E3 through the structure will give me a great workout and get me out of the house, so it could turn into a win-win situation.

Oh, I forgot to mention I play on the equipment, too. Hey, they didn't have those when I was a kid, and three preschoolers gives me a great excuse to be the scary lady on the slide.

The Only Good Thing about Winter

There is only one good thing about cold weather as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, I may enjoy a good snow with the best of them, but face it here in the Sunny South we're more likely to be blessed with a cold rain or one of those awesome ice storms that have us huddled in the dark for long chilly hours.

No, winter doesn't bring a long series of picture postcard days. It brings mud and ice and chilly trips outside to tend to animals who have to eat anyway. It brings worries about relatives who have to travel. It brings the propane man and his bills, the early dark, the skeletal trees against the sky.

The one thing that it brings that I really appreciate is death to fleas.

A good cold snap will, in fact, bring death to pretty much any insect not equipped with a hibernation mechanism that allows them to hide and sleep through the cold. That means goodbye to the butterflies, crickets and honey bees, which is a less welcome farewell. But on the good side it brings an end to the brown marmorated stink bugs and Asian lady beetles who appear in droves and invade our home like so many bad Asian imports, hanging out until we kill or apprehend them. More importantly it spells death to mosquitoes, most flies, ticks, and, eventually, fleas.

That's not enough to make me like winter, but it is one point on the side of cold weather.

Face it, if you own a dog or cat who goes outside, or, as in my case work with a lot of dogs, you've battled fleas this year.

Lots of fleas.

Usually a good dose of flea drops or spray is enough to keep them at bay. I have gone whole summers and not had a flea on one of my house dogs or inside. I've usually been able to keep my two yard dogs free, and sometimes the neighbor's dog as well just because treating her helps keep cross contamination down.

This summer I may has well have sprayed them with water -- they would have appreciated it about as much and it would have done about as much good.

A good treatment with the top of the line, $60 a bottle flea killer, which was supposed to last a month, might have lasted two weeks if we were lucky.

At various points during the summer my house dogs were flea infested, the children (who also live with dogs) occasionally had suspicious looking bites on their legs, my husband complained that he thought there might be fleas in the bed. I'm one of those people who don't attract blood-sucking insects so I generally lucked out.

We flea shampooed, shaved Jack Russell's hair (to increase visibility), washed bedding, sprayed. Yet no matter what we did, it seemed in a week or so we'd see the telltale signs of scratching again.

The yard dogs, unfortunately, were worse off even though I treated them regularly as well. Poor Rebel, my lab, often looked to be having seizures in the driveway as he tried in vain to scratch places he couldn't reach. Macy for some reason was less troubled, but they were both suffering.

We fought the good fight on all fronts, but there were always more. No sooner had we beat them down for a few days than I would see someone scratching again.

And don't even get me started on dogs who came for grooming. I had older dogs who I bathed and the water literally ran pink off their backs they were so infested with old flea poop. One black dog's hair was even crusty, but you couldn't tell it because of his color and his arthritis meant he'd pretty much been suffering in silence. My scalp would be crawling by the time I finished with some of my clients and I was convinced I had to be as infested as they were.

So despite the death of my flowers and the end of summer, there was a small part of me that began to breathe a sigh of relief when that first killing freeze swept through. Fresh fleas, at least, would be in reduced numbers.

The outside dogs are now bedded down in cedar and although there are still some little friends in their hair, the next warm day I plan on either bathing or spraying or both and leaving them lonely for the rest of the winter. House dogs have been pretty much itch free since that first frosty morning.

Winter is coming and while I'm struggling to find things to be thankful for, the death of the fleas will have to head the list. I'll try to remind myself that every subfreezing day is killing fleas and maybe, just maybe, that will help get me through the winter.