Summertime

Things are, as they always are in America, hectic.  The girls have finished up school, and have been attending two different summer camps.  SB strongly prefers the camp at her preschool, because they don't make her nap.  She comes home dirty, happy, and gloriously exhausted.  Miss M has not yet attended that camp (her school got out later), and strongly prefers the camp that they have been at since she got out of school.  She has been crying and yelling when we raise the fact that her preferred camp got booked up for the next few weeks, so she will be attending the camp at SB's preschool (which is also for older kids).  SB, meanwhile, is delighted.  She loathes the camp they've been going to, as they make her nap.  The side effect of this is that she is up until 10pm every night.  It is remarkable how little sleep the child needs, and a source of much consternation.  I tried talking to the camp about the nap, but they are utterly inflexible about it.  I think it's weird that they have a rest time  for 4 year olds.  But, we managed to soldier through it, with none of horrible fallout that we had over the school year.  We are soooo looking forward to next week's camp, and are sure Miss M will love it once she's there.  She used to run ahead to get to SB's preschool when we dropped her off, so she had a few minutes to play before I dragged her out of there to take her to her own school.  It truly is a magical place.

We have to sign the contract this week for preschool for next year.  They've been blessedly silent about it until now, so we let it go as we watched to see how things were going to shake out with our international options.  I am in the running for a job in the Caribbean, but we still don't know how it will pan out.  Honestly, although it will be a really tight situation financially, I'm fine with staying another year.  It would be really great if we got to stay another year AND the job in the Caribbean came through for next year.  After (what would then be) two years of chaotic "first world" parenting, slow island pace sounds pretty amazing to me.  The only fly in this ointment is that the job may come through much sooner than expected, like by the end of the summer.  So basically, I'm in the running for a job with an undetermined availability date, as they haven't decided yet when they will fill the job.  And of course, they may still decide to go with another candidate, because that's life.

We had a fabulous Fourth of July.  We did a spur-of-the-moment overnight trip to the shore.  We had a wonderful couple of days hiking, playing in the bay, swimming in the hotel pool, getting ice cream along the boardwalk, eating fresh seafood, and visiting a really amazing sculpture/fairy garden.  It was really amazing to be out in the country.  I felt like I could finally. . .breathe.  Being in the country is definitely my happy place.  Except.  Three days after we got back, I developed the unmistakable tattoo of Lyme disease on my leg.  We did a 3.5 mile hike with the girls, and they did really amazing, and I never saw a tick on me. But the trailhead had huge signs warning of a serious tick problem/Lyme disease in the area, and I vaguely recall feeling something on my leg in the location where the rash eventually appeared, and scraping something small with my nail.  In hindsight, it was likely a tiny deer tick, and I likely knocked it off and left the head; I didn't think to look at the time, because I was busy with the chaos that is little kids.  Ticks have to be on your body for 24 hours to transmit the disease, but if you leave the head, it can continue to exude saliva and infect you, apparently.  Luckily, being from Northern New England, I'm familiar with the bulls-eye rash that is the signature of Lyme disease, and I went straight to urgent care for antibiotics the moment I saw it.  I never actually felt bad, so hopefully there will be no long-term effects.

What else?  The girls have three more weeks of summer camp, and then T and I have four weeks off between us.  We're taking the girls to New England for the month to spend time with family and friends.  They'll do two weeks with me and two weeks with T.  It's a huge bummer that we can't vacation as a family, but T doesn't have any time built up, since he's relatively new in his job, and I couldn't get more than two weeks off this summer because things are a little crazy at work.  Nevertheless, it will be good for the kids.  I'm a little nervous, because we are spending it all at family lake houses, and the idea of the girls around the water without me terrifies me.  But I'm trying not to be neurotic. . .easier said than done.

Oh, and my doctor had recommended cancer genetic testing based on my family history.  It took me six months to get the appointment, but I finally had it, and decided to move forward with the testing.  It is a little stressful, but once I learned that if I am a carrier, there is a 50% chance I could have passed it on to the girls, it was a no-brainer.  Hopefully, I will not be a carrier for any of the gene mutations, and that will be that.  They told me that one possibility is that they'll find a gene mutation that they do not yet know the significance of, which ends up being kind of a question mark.  Ergh.  Hopefully, it will all just be normal and unremarkable.

It looks like it's going to be another scorcher here.  I won't lie.  I LOVE the hot weather.  I'm looking forward to trying out the ginger melon popsicles I made last night, and visiting the local pool.