to a louse...

Great poem, but you don't have to read it. Scroll down for my notes...

To a Louse
Robert Burns
(On seeing a louse on a lady's bonnet at church!)

Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho' faith, I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunned by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner,
On some poor body.

Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle
Wi' ither kindred, jumpin cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn or bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.

Now haud ye there, ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rels, snug an' tight;
Na faith ye yet! ye'll no be right
Till ye've got on it,
The vera tapmost, towering height
O' Miss's bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an' grey as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie ye sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum!

I wad na been surprised to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss's fine Lunardi!—fie!
How daur ye do't?

O Jenny, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin!

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n Devotion!

So last week was Burns supper night, thus the ever so appropriate poem, and I discovered that all 4 kids have/had lice! It is so yuck. After two treatments in 2 days, still half of my children have a few tiny lice that I, as mother monkey, pick out. After washing everything and becoming experts on head lice removal I am ok with the few that remain. My head itches incessantly. I have treated myself and Rich and we check each other's heads, but so far have been pronounced clean. We'll be doing treatment no. 3 for all next week. I had three extra kids the weekend before the discovery and dreaded telling the moms. I was so surprised when each told me that their kids had it too! Not really, but they told me that it wasn't the first time and one mom said that she keeps a special comb by the tub for nit removal at every bath. Great.

I have been feeling a little guilty that I don't read as much to Paris as I did the rest and over Christmas was worrying that she was never going to be able to read- bad mom syndrome... Well the first week back to school she started writing and writing. Lists and cards and everything and I bought two little easy readers and she reads! Such relief! She is on track... no thanks to me unless my genes count for something. Thank you teachers at school. (I do read to her, just not as much as I did to the others). So Poor Paris, as the baby does get special treatment. The other day she would not eat salad or something so I fed her at her request- it is a bit of a joke because she know that I'll give her giant bites and it will take 2 where as when she does it, it takes way to long, but as she opened big, I freaked out because she had her big teeth coming in on the bottom row! A little baby shark! She told me her teeth were loose, but I didn't think so- well that night she pulled her first tooth out. She was so brave. The tooth fairy even remembered to visit.

So last weekend when we had all the extra kids, for breakfast one said he wanted soda. Well we had sparkling water and juice, so I told them all to cast a spell and make soda (Leif and his best friend are witches). The friend quickly cast his spell, "tick tock make it cock". (Coke) Love the Glaswegian accent. I started giggling, so did another little older, American friend/kid who was over. Rich then cast his, "Fire and smoke turn to coke". Magically the sparkling water and juice came together.

Back to the Grind...

The good news is that I passed my Criminal Law Class- with a nice grade. Not an A, but close... I am very relieved. All during the break I was planning my return to the states. I thought about admitting defeat. Quitting. It was all set... and then I passed! So we are here and it feels good.

I tried to make books for the kids for Christmas, but that didn't happen. I thought about baking, but that didn't happen either. For Atlas' birthday he got a giant store-bought panatone! The shame of having a store-bought cake! However, I did relax and finally go to the movies (after not going for 4 months) and I did make the books for the kids when they went back to school- maybe I'll give the books to them for Valentine's Day...


I love living here. I was really prepared for rain and rain and rain. It hasn't been awful (yet?). The days are short and the sun sometimes doesn't come out but there are still a few roses in bloom in the odd garden and hydrangeas are starting to bud. It is still so green. The trees, even without their leaves, are majestic. And best of all, I love the buildings- the church spires and towers.

My vacation is almost over!

These three weeks we have done it all! Had Lovely family in town-
(this is the park behind our house) we miss Dreamy (Dries) terribly, celebrated a birthday- Atlas turned 12! Christmas, our 13 anniversary, a trip to Paris just Rich and me,


New Years and the Deadly UK Flu. I am recovering just now and the three littles are in the midst of it. Some highlights: me holding Paris who was just starting to get sick, Leif who had been complaining all morning that he was not feeling so good but begging to go play with his Scotland best friend. He told me that he felt like throwing up so I told him to go to the kitchen. He turned his head and started to throw up just as Richard walked in the door. I started laughing so hard. Poor Paris asked me why I was laughing. It was the culmination of the last 4 days. Me on the couch and now more sick kids to deal with. Poor Rich. Fast forward 16 hours. It is the early morning and I can't sleep. Dizzy and awake on the couch, Emilia enters announcing that she feels like throwing up. I tell her to go to the kitchen, she doesn't make it. Rich is asleep and the mess is up to me to clean. I wasn't laughing.

Our next challenge was getting rid of the Christmas tree. We are on the second floor of our flat and although we have wood floors, the stairs and entrance are all carpeted. There is no way that I'll vacuum up the millions of needles that will fall and neither will Rich, so our alternative is to toss the tree out our window.

It was a success!
And we never did any Christmas cards or any more Christmas pictures...

Relief!

So I have finished the last of my exams and now it is Christmas time. (It hasn't felt like it yet) I am relieved and trying to not worry! I get my results in January sometime so until then... I have a three week break, one of which is when the kids are back in school. It will be like old times and me a stay at home mom again.

We haven't taken a successful Christmas photo yet. Our next appointment is this Saturday. We bought a tripod which was hard because we have 2 in storage. But now I can play photographer! This is one picture that is not going to be used- it is in front of Glasgow University. Any Harry Potter Fans? Does it look familiar?

Charla is coming from Rotterdam for Christmas so us "three little girls" will be together for an entire week. We are ready to PARTY.

My other news is that we bought a car last week. Our "new" car is a Mercedes. It is green and seats 7. It is an '85! It looks nice but smells so so so bad! The night we bought it Rich took it for a little drive- his first on the "wrong" side of the road and rolled down a window that the seller told us didn't work... It went down perfectly, but not back up! It stayed down for an entire week- in the rain and rain and rain- there weren't any sunny days. But now we have a car! I plan on taking it all over the UK. While I was depressed during my studying I planned many trips. Richard is excited to work on it and found a few same models on the internet that have over a million miles on them- with the original engine! Ours doesn't have near that many... It may have been very inexpensive, but hopefully we will have some good times with it.

The painting behind us is so cool, but because the lack of the light it is blurry and it was a stressful day so we didn't try too hard to get a good picture but if you look closely there are some very beautiful dead animals. I liked the boar best.

Reaching Limits

So I have finally reached my limit and now wonder if I can do anything at all! I have panic attacks a few times a day (not really but sort of). It will all be over in three weeks!
Richard and I finally went out for real this past weekend. A friend and fellow student was having a party and as I have been anti-social I made Richard get out and go with me. We had a really great time. The kids were left at home in their beds. I locked the door and told Atlas that the key was on the ground by it- we have only one exit here- the door and just wanted him to know. We got home around 2 am. On the late side for me and I thought that with it being Saturday I could sleep in and would have a nice day reading and reviewing. We got into our building and up the stairs to our door and found that the key on the other side was in the lock. Our key would not go in because the lock was turned a little bit. We called on the cell phone the house phone and to our other cell phone in the house. I could hear the phones ringing. Nothing. Richard went down the stairs and buzzed. I could hear it, but no answer. We knocked and rang and buzzed. Nothing. Richard threw newspaper at the windows. I heard it thump clearly on the other side of the door. No response. Richard tried to scale the building in the frosty night, but couldn't get passed the lintel and I was afraid that he would fall and impale himself on the iron work. We played with the lock a bit and at one point I heard the kids moaning in their sleep and yes I ran down and buzzed the door. Our cell phone battery died sometime after continuous calling. In the end Richard and I tried to sleep on the carpet in front of our door. Atlas finally awoke at 7 in the morning and let us in! We were so cold and so tired. I think that I am too old to lose a whole night of sleep (and precious study time). The kids did let us sleep for a while- I think they were afraid to wake us. Two cold miserable and very irritable parents. It will be a long time before I go out and stay out late again...This it the stairwell of the flat where the party was. Little did we know that we would be spending the night in one. We were locked out because of this little imp.

A Day Out

School is going good. I have less than 3 weeks left of the semester and then it is exam time. I am keeping up with everything so it should not be too difficult? I am still liking all my classes and maybe even like contract law the best? My mom has fantasies of me making millions doing international "corporation stuff" and I just roll my eyes, but I do like contracts... Only when the kids are fighting or screaming do I get panic attacks and think what the ?@%$#*! am I doing.

We took a day trip to New Lanark, a World Heritage site, about an hour outside of Glasgow- so so beautiful. We hiked to a waterfall and visited the wool mill factory town.

Five kids is not too bad!



Cammie had her baby and we got Soren for the day.

Richard shaved- I think he looks soooo great! He is trying to snarl for the camera.

Seeing Pounds

I love pounds- not the few extra that make me womanly, but the little, smaller than a quarter, gold coins that we use here as currency. I love that they are heavy in my purse and that they jingle in my pocket. I love that they are so easy to spend and get back. I trade a funny bill and get groceries and lots of lovely gold coins in return. The smallest denomination in a bill is a fiver (a five pound note). There is a 2 pound coin, but it isn't as common. So every time I buy something I use lots of coins. I love them. A pound can buy a kilo of bananas, or 5 big tangerines, a cupa tea or black coffee, 2 packs of gum or a box of fabulous chocolate digestive biscuits. A pound can get me to school on the bus. I have made it a point to not think that a kilo of pasta here is a pound and is 69 cents for a pound of pasta in the states- that means that pasta here is like three times more! But still I love pounds. Someday I would love to not have any extra pounds on my person, but then I really love the chocolate digestive biscuits.
Here are a few pictures:
Being American and playing baseball in the park
The kids had three first days of school- this isn't one of them, but it is what they may have looked like on their third first day of school...
ps
Richard left the house today with just one pound coin and came home with nine... it is magic!