As I sit down to write this, Hope and Troy are in their make-shift recording studio with headphones
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| example on the interweb of what our finished product might look like |
The first batch of Christmas sugar cookies have been baked and frosted. Lydia, Phoebe and I started that project early this morning and have just finished the frosting. (I spent a month making cookies that one Sunday.) All the mad props to the mothers and fathers that bake with their children on a regular basis. You are beastly freaks of nature that we defer to on all matters of ninja patience and unusual kindness.
I enjoy slightly less than zero parts of baking with children. Do you realize how infrequently they actually get the stuff into the mixing bowl? Do you know how many times you can repeat the same instruction about rolling out the dough without the instruction ever being put into practice?
actual cookies created by actual small humans that actually look
quite dissimilar to advertised outcome
Besides all that amazing mid December holiday fanfare ... The tree is up, the lights are on, the cool crisp 78 degree air nips at our noses and forces us to shiver in the cool morning air.
The deadly carcinogenic chemicals have been sprayed (AGAIN today) all over the boys room in true Christmas fashion. Pesticides are the missing component of most beautiful holiday celebrations. Yes?
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About three weeks ago the boys began to mention to me that Chestnut, our tiny Shih Tzu dog guy, had several tiny ticks on him. After a few days of hearing that I decided to take a look for myself. Once I actually listened to my children and investigated, the severity of the problem was immediately apparent. They were creating a full time home in the boys' room. Egg laying momma ticks and community developers and city planners were all working hard to build a sustainable community at the first bedroom at the top of the stairs at House of Troy. I both wished for death and considered burning down our entire house.
The very last thing you want to do is google "brown dog tick" and the last LAST thing you want to do is have them and their 5,000 eggs per mother in the bedroom where two of your children reside.
We have what the interweb refers to as an "infestation" and we are now on our third attempt to end this once and for all. We tried permethrin first. That worked for six days. Those days brought hope and joy and the skin we had scratched off in disgust began to grow back during that time of falsely believing we were done with our problem.
Today we removed everything from the room (clothing and toys and trinkets and do-dads). We sprayed all wood, tile, and cement surfaces in the entire room. This most recent product we bought is not legal in 50 states and 145 countries, but Haiti is a functional anarchy and we like our deadly chemicals available to use without regulation. The instructions beg you to cover your mouth, your nose, your eyes, your skin, and to basically spray down a room blindly while holding your breath for as long as that takes. We are not sure when we can re-enter that room, but when it happens we may live to tell you if it worked and if it killed our 'Rhipicephalus sanguineus Latreille' - brown dog tick friends.
Well, the door to the singer room just opened and the singer exited triumphantly. I think we will have a Christmas Extravaganza EDITION NINE ready to go by mid-week.
A few production photos:
