Poisoned Hair

I think you had to be there. I was certainly the only one in the car laughing so hard, but Ellen has Poison hair. At some point in time, when we were staying at Aunty Chris and Uncle Chet’s house, the kids were introduced to the idea that oleander was poisonous if ingested. The adult probably said, “if you put this in your mouth, you’ll get sick” but what the kids heared was, “if you even LOOK at this plant, you will begin to experience sharp stabbing agonizing pain and will die a very slow and painful death.” Each and every time we pass within ANY proximity to an oleander, the kids scream at each other to avoid the plant like it could reach out and squeeze the life out of them. They’re a little dramatic, my kids. Have NO idea WHERE they get it. Ocassionally, a child will brush up against an oleander, and Pike or Sissy will scream with alarm and insist on immediate removal of the poison atoms.

Yesterday, we headed to Target to stock up. For some reason Target is always a 2-3 hour adventure. If I were alone, it would take about 20 minutes, but Jamie LOVES to shop and the kids devour the books and wish upon the entire toy section. As we left, Ellen and Sissy *needed* to play on the big red balls that Target decorates their entrance with. The rest of us sat at the curb and waited. At some point, Ellen found oleander. Ellen loves to push the limits of everyone’s tolerance and seems to take certain joy in tormenting her sister. Though the youngest, she is definitely the alpha dog of the pack. Once the oleander was found, she rubbed her hair and hands in the plant. As far as *I’m* concerned, she could rub her body in the plant and I wouldn’t be bothered, but the kids went apeshit. Jamie washed Ellen’s hands and told her he’d wash her hair at the trailer. We piled all the kids into the car and headed back to the trailer. It was late and everyone was tired and JEllen must have thought it was time for some fun. She first found a necklace of her sister’s and put it around her neck. Sissy had an absolute coniption and screamed that the neclace was now poinsoned as it had passed over Ellen’s hair. With a maniacal gleam in her eye, Ellen then found numerous toys belonging to Sissy and started rubbing them on her poinsonous, infected head. Sissy erupted in screams and tears and I seriously began to worry about hearing loss. Unfortunately, I was in much more danger of killing the family as I was driving and laughing so hard I could hardly see. Jamie, never one to keep a calm head in chaos, started freaking that I’d crash on the freeway because I was laughing so hard. Ellen was rubbing toys in her hair, Sissy was screaming and crying with despair, the boys and Jamie were yelling that we were all going to die from me crashing the car and I was laughing so hard I had to pull over until I could see again. It was a fun night.

Today we’re on the way to Potrero County Park. We stayed here in January and we really enjoyed it. It was unseasonably green and lush after a very wet winter. It will be interesting to see what it looks like now. We’ll stay there, it is a great place for the kids, while we do errands in San Diego before returning to San Felipe. We’re having a lot of fun setting up the tripod and I promise to post pictures.