Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

mama drama

Mama Drama: The Elephant on my Chest

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It’s been a while since a Mama Drama installment.  I have a thousand.  They’re the basis for my dream book I’d love to publish one of these days.

You may recall the last couple zany Mama Drama installments recounted the rollercoaster that hits when you work from home. 

So in today in Mama Drama, let’s talk about the seasons that just spin out of control. 

This season: WOW!

I was talking to one of my closest friends, a rockstar mom and career woman and wife and daughter and volunteer.  She has A LOT on her plate.  So I was venting to her about how right now just feels like SO MUCH, because she gets it.  She left two really wise and insightful voxes, a snippet of which said:

I understand the stress of having to work.  And being the one who takes care of the schedule and the doctor’s appointments and the…well, when you’re the Master Puppeteer of the House.  It’s a lot and when you add extra work stresses, sometimes it just feels TOO MUCH.  I’m telling you, I felt like I constantly had an elephant on my chest last year.  I was utterly overwhelmed. 

Ah yes.  I listened to the message again, more slowly.  An elephant on my chest.

Yep.

This year started off already busy with work, and then such sadness accompanied it with the loss my best friend suffered.  The sad came with a fog that slowed my reactions, but life and school and the house and work didn’t stop.  So all the things kept stacking on top. 

You step into that busy season and add a bunch of travel.  In one month, I have been to Minnesota, Louisiana (twice – one for a mommy-and-me trip that was planned nearly a year ago), and Washington D.C. (twice for work). Late night hours and seven day work weeks and a dog that will not quite eating my entire life around me and a few unexpected doctors’ visits that had to occur this month. 

Elephant.

Meet my chest. 

I believe this is going to be a year of big change.  I don’t know what it will hold, because I asked God not to let me see too far down the road a while back, and boy He’s been super good about that… (Sigh, exhales the Type A planner.)

If I’m going to be equipped to absorb the change and press into it, then I’m going to need to find a way to wrangle that elephant.

Not eradicate him.  That’s just silly.  But maybe relocate him slightly, off my chest.

So I’m being intentional. 

One: I stop working at dinner time.  Maybe that means I’m still working at 10 pm but it allows me to eat, usually, with my whole crew.  And then I read to the kids.  Little bit and I are reading an American Girl book and the boys and I have just started the SIXTH Harry Potter book (they only read that with me). 

Two: When they come to me with a story, I stop to listen, even though there’s a thousand things going on around me.  This morning, we really needed to get out the door.  But little bit wanted to tell me about her dream.  She got interrupted twice but she finished. 

Three: Sixty second snuggles.  This morning, I crawled into bed with each one to give them hugs and kisses to wake them up.  They rolled over smiling.  No screaming from the hallway, come on, get out of bed already.  Three minutes and a solid start to the day (but don’t let that fool you, one was still in tears when he couldn’t find his chapel sweater for school).

Four: Stopping.  This weekend, I could have worked all weekend.  But I didn’t.  I worked some.  But I asked my mom to watch the kids and I did a little shopping and got a pedicure.  Two hours of being totally unplugged. 

Five: Declining invitations.  I’m having to un-RSVP to a few things and say no to others.  Not everything.  I’m still doing some things that are important, but I’m saying no to otherwise good stuff that I just can’t make work in the next 30 days. 

And…hopefully…SIX: Writing.  I love to write.  It’s therapeutic.  I really want to make it a bigger priority in the next 90 days.  That sounds insane of course.  But it’s important to me. 

And I’ve agreed to participate in a spiritual formation retreat over the next year which I’ve long wanted to do.  This seems like the absolute worst time to do it which I think makes it the best time.  Two days, four times, over the next 12 months.  To sit.  Chill out with the Creator. Figure out what’s next.  Over and over again God has brought me to this scripture: He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (Psalm 18, 2 Sam 22)

Then He proceeds to bring me to a spacious place (Alaska, Yosemite, Hill Country…). 

I’m always better after that.

So I’m going to “retreat” in the truest form of the word.  I’ll write and pray and relocate that elephant.  In March, the five Vincents get to venture into another spacious place: Sedona and the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park.  In April, we get to slip away with my best friend’s family at one of my safest and most regular spacious places, the farm. 

And in this pressing season, this one that feels oh so overwhelming at times, I will stand on the promises which I know to be true and look forward to the hope that lays on the other side of the test:  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed… (2 Cor 4)

Mama Drama: Kids Tell It True

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I’ve got oodles of Mama stories this week. I looked at the blog and realized I had not blogged ONCE yet this month! Ack! Y’all, it has been a month. But Mama Drama, I’ve got that.

I love to write about working and parenting because I have so much material.

You probably do too.

So every once in a while I’ll get going on my next book and write another installment of Mama Drama.  Send in your favorite mama drama story for the blog if you dare!

This one is hot off the press.

I’m currently working on a project I love, and I give the kids updates about wins and losses along the way so they understand what I do.

Last week, every day when I got home, the kids would ask about a particular work issue on which I was awaiting a result. Anxiously. They don’t know any of the particulars, but they get the highlights of what I’d consider a “win” or a “loss.” So I’d walk in the door, and this would happen:

Monday. Kids: “Mom, did you get the result?”

Me: “Nope, not yet, probably tomorrow.”

Tuesday. Kids: “Mom, did you get the result?”

Me: “Nope, not yet, I really hope it’s tomorrow.”

Wednesday. Kids: “Mom, did you get the result?”

Me: Sigh. “Yes. I lost. I’m working on what’s next.”

(Sidebar: I think it’s super important our kids know when we face losses. Every day has its ups and downs. They need to understand it’s not all trophies and ice cream at work.)

Kids (very seriously): “Are you going to get fired?”

Me: “No. I’m not going to get fired. Sometimes we have big wins and other times we have setbacks. You just make the best of it.”

The eldest: “Well, you really should have done a better job.”

Hahahahahaha.

Thanks a lot kid.

If people don’t understand how you stay humble, introduce them to your kids.

For me, it’s especially that kid. I adore him. But he pulls no punches. He’s direct. It will serve him well in life. And it keeps me humble.

Hot on the heels of that exchange, I was driving him to meet potential foster dogs. We’re on foster dog number 2 (more on that tomorrow). He somehow got on the topic of weight. There’s been a lot of discussion of weight this year and I’m really trying to tamp that down. I had an eating disorder in college and know how focusing on weight can mess with your mind for years. We talk about eating healthy as well as minimizing sugar which makes all triplets REALLY hyper!

Nonetheless, there was all this talk of “skinny” coming from my backseat. I responded, “I used to be skinny.”

His eyes, in the rearview mirror, widened. “Really?” he inquired incredulously.

“Um, yeah, thanks. In college and law school. I mean, I’m not exactly huge…”

Pause. “Yeah,” he responds, “I know people bigger than you.”

Thanks dude. Thanks a lot.

So there you have today’s installment of Mama Drama. What truths are your kids telling you?

Mama Drama: Working from Home, Part 2

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As I mentioned in Part 1 of Working from Home, I don’t actually get to work from home much.  And when I do, generally it’s not terribly dramatic.

But oh, sometimes it is.

The last mama drama I shared late breaking news from the working from home trenches.

This story though, it’s one for the ages.

I’d left work early so I could take a late call from home.

Bray was home and I had staked out my hideout in his office.  Computer logged on.  Documents ready to review with clients.  Kids in the back half of the house so their noise wouldn’t be heard by the call participants.

Alright, let’s do this.

I’m talking away on the call from my corner of the house when I hear loud cries.  Cries of pain.  You parents know these cries.  No bueno.

Hmmm, do I put the phone on mute and go check or just let Bray manage?  I wait a minute, Bray is clearly working on it because I can hear him too now (some is in TROUBLE), but I decide to risk it. Phone line muted, I race to the back hall.

He’s standing in the bathroom holding little bit over the sink with blood streaming down her nose. The baby looks horrified (must be responsible) and the eldest begins to explain.  W punched L in the nose. 

Aha, thanks for the news flash buddy.

Bray doesn’t look so good.  He hands her to me and says hold her and steps into the hallway.  By way of background, both husband and little bit are NO fans of blood.  Seriously not fans of blood.

Thunk.

This is what I hear from the bathroom over the water still running from the faucet.

I look around the door, still desperate to get back to my call, and see him passed out cold in the hall.

Well, it was a lot of blood.

I yell at the boys to keep slapping daddy’s face and tell me when he rouses.  His eyes were rolled back but he was breathing and I did have to work.  I run with little bit and her spouting nose to the office, grabbing an ice pack out of the freezer on my way.

I lay her on my lap, unmute the line, and respond to a question just being asked to me while putting my finger up to my lips so little bit doesn’t cry.  She’s stunned by daddy passing out now so fortunately it’s taken her mind off her nose.

Question answered, I mute the line again and yell out to the boys, Is daddy awake yet? 

Um, kind of, they reply.

I lay little bit down and run to check.  The boys can’t move him to the bedroom so I ask them to make sure he is okay.  Back to the office I race.

I wrap up the call strong, no one the wiser that I’m working from a circus, and we schedule our next meeting.  (That one will not occur from the comfort of my four walls!)

We get him to bed, all of us taking a moment to be properly freaked out by that run in, and I start dinner.

I know it’s a season.  Nose punching, hall yelling, passing out.  But it’s these seasons where it’s a little impossible to work from home every day because it’s just TOO unpredictable!

How do you do it?  Do you lock everyone in separate spaces? 🙂 🙂 🙂  Do you yell SERENITY NOW ala George Costanza?

Happy Monday friends!  It’s Thanksgiving week.  Inevitably there will be working from home.  Share your best mama drama moments!

Mama Drama: Loathsome Lice, Part 2

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Did you miss yesterday?

We kicked off the Mama Drama installments yesterday with our family’s LICE outbreak, Day 1! Loathsome lice!  The saga wraps up today.

So this is what happened after all the Voxer back and forth of Friday morning and afternoon.

I got lice. The baby also got lice.  So, so far, we were three for five.  But I just went ahead and treated all of us like we have lice.

I went to pick up Will for a doctor’s visit at school near the end of Friday and Lillie’s teacher was amazing. She reiterated that clean heads get lice more easily (WHY IS THIS FACT NOT MORE WELL KNOWN!?!?!), and she said she goes through it every single year (she’s been teaching 25+ years).  She sent home the name of a company we could use if we couldn’t get rid of them that makes that their job.  I was willing to hire anyone if I couldn’t kick it over the weekend.

We slept in the promethium cream overnight.

I just slathered us all down and bagged up our heads. Like a bad SNL skit.

I did 14 loads of laundry in the first 24 hours. Bagged up every doll, throw pillow, stuffed animal, anything with a stitch of hair of fabric and I put it all the garage.  I ripped out every rug and pulled it outside and beat it and vacuumed it.  I vacuumed the whole house on Friday. On Saturday. On Sunday.  I changed every single bedsheet on Friday. On Saturday. On Sunday.

Saturday morning, because my hubby and the baby left town for the farm, my sweet eldest child sat in the backyard picking my hair with the lice comb.

He kept saying, here’s another one mommy, and showing me the comb.

Aggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh.

I will forever be scarred.

Sunday, the other medicine which had disappeared from the shelves in Houston mysteriously arrived. So I went to buy that to treat us again, just in case.  It was $130 a tube AFTER insurance.  That’s right: ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS ($360 without insurance – no wonder people get stuck in a lice cycle).

So I only purchased one tube and split it between Lillie and I because we were the ones who apparently really got the loathsome lice.  I returned an adorable dress I’d bought and purchased the lice cream instead.  To add insult to injury.  Because, of course.

Then I slathered the new cream on our two heads and we sat with the pungent odor filling up the bathroom.

Every time anything scratched, I freaked out. Knowing they weren’t all gone.

One of my best friends texted me to apologize for missing her and her husband’s double date with us. This was my text response.

ME: Well there would have been no double date because the Vincents are in the middle of their first hellish LICE outbreak. So far, L brought it home from school yesterday and now the baby and I have contracted the little buggers. We have prescription strength medicine which kills all eggs and lice overnight (we sleep in it) and all stuffed animals and any toy with hair have been bagged and put in the garage for two weeks and all the throw rugs and pillows are gone and all the sheets and bedding are going through scalding cycles with high heat dry.  AGGGGGGHHH!

BFF: OMG. I have heard about this nightmare – I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry. I can’t think of a worse welcoming to a new school. If there is anything I can do, please let me know. I could run some errands for you or something? How long does it take to get rid of lice?

ME: Apparently they will all be dead tomorrow – unless I missed a spot somewhere in our home, but they can’t live off humans for long and I have cleaned from stud to frame.

BFF: Are the bugs dead and gone? I still cannot believe you had to deal with this during the second week of school. Maybe we can get together?

ME: There are no words for the horror. First of all, we contracted lice in our first week of school.  NO one is going to want to be our friend! Then the past 24 hours have been awful. I’ve done 14 loads of laundry. Bagged and bagged. The kids rooms are bare but books, and the garage is full (for two weeks).  Curtains pulled down. Rugs pulled out. I vacuum every day. I pulled the sheets and pillowcases this am and rewashed and am going to do that every day for a week along with the washing.

B left for the farm so this morning S ever so patiently lice combed my hair after we washed out the prescription shampoo from overnight.  And he found numerous eggs.  He was meticulous.  He appears to have escaped but we treated him anyway.  Eggs take 10 days to hatch so you can’t let up. I’m horrified and exhausted. Then my babysitter didn’t show to babysit for L, so I had to drop S at a boys only birthday party and then hang at Target with L, asking one of the moms I just met to watch out for S.  I am near tears.

The loathsome lice did die.

There was another outbreak in 1st grade during the spring that had me in hives.  God bless, we did not contract it.  I think God knew I couldn’t take two episodes in one year.  I’m just not that strong.

In a four week period that August, one or more of the kids had infected lymph nodes, school starting, a urinary problem, colds, lice and the culmination with mass strep throat. Because of course.  Serious mama drama.

It’s August again.  School is starting next week.  We’ve had one tonsillectomy already.  To say my nerves are on edge would be an understatement.

Mama Drama: Loathsome Lice, Part 1

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My kids head back to school next week.

The imminent return to school had me replaying some of my motherhood highs and lows in my head.

One I never wrote about, partly out of embarrassment and partly out of post-incident trauma, was our lice outbreak.

Loathsome lice.  Evil heinous little creatures.

Ones which we contracted ONE WEEK after the kids started their NEW school a year ago!  That’s right – the new kids with lice.

Today are the highlights of my Voxer exchange that first day with a dear mama who’d been through the fire to give you a good laugh (and a feel for my horror and overwhelmed-ness).  Let’s call her MWLE (Mom with Lice Experience).  Tomorrow, the hilarity (or despair) concludes.

Me:  Have you gone through lice? I’m asking for a close personal friend whose daughter may or may not have woken up with lice.

MWLE:  You must call up the pediatrician. It’s super lice and Texas has it.  The stuff in the store it doesn’t work – the lice have grown beyond it.  So you have to get this prescription called in from the doctor she will sleep in overnight.

All the hippies in the world will tell you it soaks into your kids brain – I don’t even care, don’t listen to them.

They will tell you it’s highly flammable. What if it catches fire, they will wonder aloud to you.  Well okay, so no one smoke around her in the middle of the night.  Does anyone smoke around her in the middle of the night?

You have to wash her bedding every night. I’m so sorry.  Dry it on high heat.  Stick all the throw pillows in garbage bags, I don’t know, for like 3 months.  Or you can freeze stuff.

Melt your scalp. It’ll itch and peel, who cares.  Burn it with the hair dryer.  Straighten it with the hair dryer.

Also, Listerine, mayonnaise, and tea tree oil will all help. Slather it all over her and sit there.

Me:  (Sniffing, in complete panic now…) Do I put her stuffed animals in bags?

I’m throwing away my hairbrush. I loved it. It’s been with me a long time.  But she used it.  (Sniff, sniff.)

I guess I should tell her teacher, but I’m so mortified, we’ve never had lice.

I’m going to have to bag her baby dolls. She’s going to be so heartbroken because she just sits in her room and plays with her baby dolls.

MWLE:  (Imagine voice in full military tone, it’s all business with MWLE, no room for huggy kissy crap – this is war!)

Wash the bedding – ALL the bedding EVERYWHERE on as hot of water and high of heat as you have. Wash all the rugs, all the pillows, everything.  Don’t share anything!  Not masks. Hats. Sunglasses.  Agh.  No child should touch another’s.

Vacuum vacuum vacuum. Lice cannot live off of the human body for more than 24 hours so vacuum everywhere and ALL the time.

You’ve got to get all the nits in the environment.

Also, clean hair gets lice easier. So do other people know that?  I don’t know. But if you tell the teacher it can prevent this terrible cycle of other parents going through this.

ME:  My pediatrician didn’t even bat an eye. The nurse had been through it and said we’re calling you in three bottles of the prescription shampoo and you’ll probably only need one bottle for the boys.

ME:  (Later in complete panic!)  But NO Walgreens in the city of Houston has THIS prescription shampoo and it will not be available until Monday!  It’s Friday!

So what other pharmacy would you use?, the nurse inquires kindly.  I. Will. Go. Anywhere, Nurse Lisa.  I will drive anywhere in the greater Houston area where we can find this medicine.  She responded, I’m on it, I will call you back – but not in five minutes, two hours, so hang in there.

MWLE:  I am so glad you have found a nurse that has been through it. Because there are two camps of people in this world.

There is the camp of people that have been tried in the furnace of lice and those that have not been.  And until you have been through this furnace, you might think you get it, but you DO NOT KNOW the furnace of having your children have lice.

Do I have to meet you? Is there any of this medicine I could buy in Florida?  I’ll meet you half way.  Because I have been through the furnace.  I will bring you the medicine.

ME:  We are new to this school! We have been at this school for ONE WEEK.  We are the family WITH LICE?  Do I have to call her friends?

It didn’t even cross my mind! I wouldn’t have even looked at it if she hadn’t told me her teacher said I should look at her neck.

MWLE:  Keep me posted.  Remember: Hot water. Hot dryer. And you have to vacuum everything. If you have a bag in your vacuum, you have to change it in every room because a louse can get out in your house.

(Me Listening: A LOUSE IN MY HOUSE!  I’m in a bad Dr. Seuss book!)

ME:  So I have to go figure out my vacuum cleaner because I’ve never operated it because I have people who come and clean my house.  (I do not have the time to be embarrassed right now.)

MWLE:  Bag everything for two weeks.  First, apply lice spray that is supposed to kill them before you bag them.  Bag up all the cushions in the couch. All animals.  All dolls. Get a mattress cover.  Did I mention: wash the sheets every day.

ME:  I’m going to cry. I am crying. All of the medicines were out of stock everywhere! So then the doctor went a different route and called in a different medicine. And then I went to pick it up and the pharmacist said it was out of stock!  WHAT!?!?

The “people” told the nurse all the HEBs have it.  But then they called it in and all the HEBs do not have it.  So the nurse just asked, what do you have for lice? HEB says we have nothing.

So then precious, persistent Nurse Lisa calls Walgreens and says what do you have for lice?  They say we have this X product.  Nurse says how much do you have?  They say seven tubes!

OH BUT WAIT!  I send Bray to pick it up and he arrives and the despicable pharmacist says they only have ONE TUBE.  Why would they just tell Nurse Lisa they have seven tubes when they have ONE TUBE.  We now own one expensive tube of some random lice cream. I don’t even know if this stuff is going to work.  And the doctor’s office closes in less than one hour ON A FRIDAY.