Alligators and Chicken Pox

It is 3 am in the morning and I am up for all kinds of crazy reasons.. but it gives me a chance to blog just a bit and get a little caught up.

First of all Ariana has the chicken pox. They don't look like normal chicken pox. They don't have the white blister type top. Instead, they are simple red bumps. The doctor said this is what they look like if you have been vaccinated and didn't get fully immune, or if you have had them before and only established partial immunity. My guess is that she was exposed in the orphanage at a young age and didn't have a healthy enough system to develop full immunity. They started mainly on her face with a few scattered in other random areas. They never itched and she never ran a fever. In fact, yesterday I thought we would be clear of them by today. And then, she got them in her private area yesterday afternoon. The poor girl is CLAWING at her diaper. Bless her heart! If anyone has any ideas on how to soothe her I am open to ideas.

Now from Chickens to Alligators. What is funny is how people who live outside of Florida don't realize how prevalent Alligators are in Florida. You can't get rid of them. You can only learn to live with them. They are in road side ditches, all ponds, and they LOVE golf courses. They don't normally hang out in the salt water, but they have ended up there on occasion and it is never a good situation. If they are there, the Alligator population is so large that they have run out of hunting ground and eventually a person ends up in trouble. That being said, Floridians have learned to co-exist with the gators......well, most of the time.

Yesterday, I had 2 of my 3 gators hauled away to my neighbor's dismay. I think the painters must have been feeding the gators, because they were coming up to our yard and hanging out. A gator should run to the water when a human approaches. When they don't, it is time to have them removed. And, No, they don't relocate them. This and gator farming are the only way you get your gator nuggets when you come to visit. They must be a danger to humans to be removed. The trapper told me that the one that went after Banjo last year and pulled him in the pond was 11 feet long. The two yesterday were around 6-8 feet. I have photos and I will add them when I can. The first year we lived here she (the trapper for our area is a girl) had to come and get one out of my garage. But other than those 3 instances, I haven't bothered with them much. To be honest, within the week we will have more gators in the pond. There are too many of them and not enough ponds. The bigger ones will chase the smaller ones away, so some small gator is going to be happy to find a new home if the 1 that we couldn't find yesterday lets him. Wild times at the Robson home.. literally!

The last thing I wanted to put down for posterity was how girly Ariana has been! She is SOO into brushing my hair. And darn it, it hurts! She is also into make up. She loves to find it and put it on herself. Of course she has base streaks across her face and lipstick from side to side (she can't seem to get enough on to make her happy), but she thinks she looks charming. I will say, that it isn't fair to say she is acting girly. I think all my boys did this too. Maybe not the hair brushing too much, but the make up is transgender. And, adorable.

Ok, one more update. Ian is doing great at his new job. He really looks forward to when we live there and he can start enjoying the real benefit of corporate life. He is constantly marveled by when he could have been at home that day. We are so used to him being gone M-Friday, that the idea of him sleeping in his bed is a wonder, but when people actually leave work on a fairly frequent basis between 5 and 6, and therefor are at home between 5:30-7, we stand in awe. It is going to be fabulous! I find it fascinating that after one week at work, he is really going at it like he had been there much longer. It makes sense when you are a teacher. You can go in and pick up easily where someone left off. Subs do it daily. Construction workers are the same way. But, most other jobs require a learning curve, right? I guess the good news about consultants is that they have really been at the job all along, just getting paid insane amounts to do the work. It sounds like the same stuff he did before really. In the end, the great news is that he really adores the people he spends his days with and he seems to genuinely enjoy what he is doing. And, we are grateful. We know what a gift he has been given.

Michelle