The Scent of Grandmothers

We are in high floral season here at our house and when I wander out to catch a whiff of what are now the tail end of the lilacs....I think of my Grandma Joyce. She is the only grandparent left that I can visit with in the flesh. One very special grandma who stocked lilac scented spray in her bathroom all through my childhood.

There's something very exciting and alluring about your grandma's bathroom when you're a little girl...all those jeweled lipstick cases, the fluffy towels and various hydrating lotions and curlers that were such mysteries from exotic lands. I always lingered and lingered  there in that land of forbidden treasures where I was alone behind a closed door. I admit to sometimes requiring parental retrieval in the bathrooms at all of my grandma's houses.

Somehow, through their bathrooms, each of them imprinted themselves on my mind in the form of a scent. Whenever I smell lilacs I think of Grandma Joyce and smile, remembering the pretty painted design on the side of the oh-so-exotic room spray she faithfully stocked in her upstairs bathroom. I'm thinking of her often these days since the smell of lilacs is always on the wind and really looking forward to putting Baby into her wise arms for the first time this summer when we visit.

My artistic Grandma Sally is the oiled scent pressed out of geranium leaves. I climbed up on her bathroom counter and sat cross-legged, fondling tiny, little guest soaps, printed with geranium blossoms that she brought back home from her amazing visits to The Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island and kept against another day. In her sun room, a few steps below the kitchen, live geraniums were in near perpetual bloom, creeping along the windowsills in numerous colors and varieties no matter the time of year. I think about her every time my watering can brushes the leaves on my geranium as I make my rounds in my own sun room now, giving out plant drinks.

Great-grandma Grace lived in a farmhouse, out in front of the family vineyard where I was married. I was a very small girl when I first absorbed the hot pink smell of old rose in the little half-bath off her farm wife's kitchen. I am remember washing my hands an extra time or two just so that I would be sure to smell that dusty scent on my hands after I had dried them on her pretty little terrycloth towels. She was a little woman with translucent white waves in her hair, incredibly soft palms and a soft smile, always there, standing quietly in her kitchen....living forever in my memory in a misty cloud of eau de old rose. All June I'll think of her whenever the scent drifts down the sidewalk from a neighbor's garden.

Rainy, Frappe Days

Today was rainy, so rainy...and I am unbearably sleepy. A has switched jobs which has meant a re-juggling of our schedule...new sleeping times, new waking hours...and a toddler who is still just as much of a persistent early bird as ever and doesn't understand change.Whew. I kinda think that's why I'm wiped. Of course, it could just be stressful, familial, medical emergency recovery + third trimester exhaustion. Had a midwife appointment today and dragged all the kids along with me through the rain and had a major meltdown after the totally insane check-up.

There were kids rudely talking over the midwives, kids un-sterilizing instruments, kids dropping nacho cheese dip on the floor and kids getting lost outside the exam door down random hallways. Argh. Sometimes real life feels unbelievable. Afterwards, it must be admitted there were frantic texts to the husband person and a caramel frappe with a large fry to accompany the mini-meltdown.

To be fair though...there have also been some good moments. There are blink-your-eyes-green baby leaves on every tree, swelling peony buds, our first, fresh garden radishes and my first, real portrait in watercolor....a terrifying endeavor that I think I genuinely like. And tonight, the babysitter is coming over to feed my kids mac and cheese from a box while A and I jack ourselves up on a little adrenaline via the movie The Avengers. Am very curious. Can a superhero movie possibly be as good as "The Critics" claim? Am skeptical but game. Am also counting on the adrenaline to keep me awake since the caramel frappe did nothing in that department.

Rocky Mountain Spotted What????

We have been on a crazy, wild roller coaster as a family. Our first, real, health emergency. Sweet little Nib was bitten by a tick, ostensibly right here in our own city yard (we weren't really anywhere else at the time) and came down with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, the deadliest of the tick borne diseases. I've had Lyme's Disease before so I'm pretty cautious about tick illnesses now but this one was the scariest run-in yet. As with many of the tick sicknesses, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is a very evil trickster. It looks like nothing much (fever, rash, generalized aching) and then suddenly it starts doing clever things like attacking your internal organs systematically. The real key with tick borne illnesses is to look carefully for ticks attached to you after you've been outdoors and if you notice any symptoms of illness afterwards (particularly fever) get thee to a doctor and get thee on antibiotics. (So says the CDC in their official guidelines for tick illness.)

Some doctors (ours for instance) are conservative and feel disinclined to treat first, ask questions later and will drag their feet, suggest a wait-and-see plan and tell you it is unlikely you've been infected. While I completely and whole heartedly agree with this plan of action if we're talking about ear infections or the run-of-the mill coughs, tick diseases are different. The stage where they can be cured easily is the stage when they look like nothing much. Once they look serious the patient is often either untreatable or seriously damaged. My personal opinion is, treat....ask questions later. If a doctor tries to get you to have a blood test to prove that what you have is a tick borne disease, go along with it happily but insist that you be treated immediately after the test is administered...not when the results come back. Tick testing takes two weeks or so and waiting that long can be detrimental to health. Don't wait! The treatment is simply an antibiotic, a really kick-butt strong antibiotic but still...that's all it is, nothing crazy or involved.

Nib ended up being hospitalized in order to be observed and to have his antibiotic administered via iv in order to get it in his system more quickly and to keep an eye on the many things in his body that had started to complain by the time he was finally diagnosed (his kidney function, his liver enzymes, his hemoglobin numbers, etc.) after getting the run-around from the first doctors who saw him. We are so incredibly grateful for the internet, for the knowledge available at the tips of any parent's fingers about CDC policy and disease symptoms and even drug details. Without it I'm not sure we'd have our boy alive today.

We are also incredibly grateful to our local city hospital where our son was correctly and swiftly diagnosed and we were given such wonderful care from infectious disease specialists, nurses, pediatricians and everyone else involved in our case. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is a rarity in our area but it is here and so are several other more prevalent tick diseases. Don't fool around with ticks: use repellent, landscape with care, inspect yourself and your children after outings and use your local health department who will often receive and identify ticks  and sometimes test them for diseases which can help you determine if you should seek treatment....even when few or no symptoms present themselves (which can happen).

This week, I plan to call a non-toxic tick control company, lay down a little more mulch, double check our bug repellent stock, hug our son, and breath. Just breath.