Month: June 2011

If you’ve hung out with the Hicks girls for any length of time, you’ll probably end up hearing about our mango allergy. You only have to say the word, “Mango” and 3 of the 4 of us will suddenly back away from the table, hunting for any speck of the offending food.

It wasn’t always that way. I remember my mom getting mangos from the grocery store and showing us how she used to eat them when she lived in Hawaii — how we would fight over who got to eat the leftover mango that was stuck to the pit and then spending the next hour trying to get the mango fibers out of my teeth. Good times.

And then in college, while we still lived in Oakland, Kristy and I ate mango and then did something where we were out in the sun all day. We ended up with swollen lips and blisters all around our mouths and couldn’t even open our mouths to eat. We spent all week lying on the couch, watching tv, and getting hooked on General Hospital, so it wasn’t all bad.

I blamed it on the combination of the acid and the sunburn and didn’t relate it to the fruit until the next time I ate one and ended up with similar blisters. Maybe it was just the juice on my skin that caused the problem — so a few weeks later I tried eating a few bites using a knife and fork, making sure that the fruit only touched the inside of my mouth. A few hours later I felt the familiar tightness and prickly feeling around my mouth. No more mangos for me.

Thankfully our kids have not had the same problem. They eat them with abandon, just like their dad, always saying kind things like “sorry mom. I wish you could have some.” Except for Caleb, who often orders mango ice cream or mango smoothies so he won’t have to share with me.

And now we live in the land of perfect mangos — displays of the yellow fruit piled high everywhere we go. I steer clear while the kids pick out bags of them to enjoy at home. Then they carefully wash their hands before touching me. But those days look like they may be over.

It started with Calvin and Caleb. I didn’t suspect mango at first, but blamed it on heat rash or sunscreen sensitivities, or just not washing their faces well enough.

 

Until he woke up this morning with the first tell-tale spots on his face. Welcome to the club.

The baby is fed and napping, the floors are mopped, clean sheets on the beds, the kitchen is spotless, laundry is ironed and put away, there is food in the refrigerator and I worked out — all before noon. Who knew that it took two humans to successfully do the job I’ve been trying to do by myself for years?

*Although since I slept in and pretty much just focused on the working out part of the above list, I suspect that Lucy could do it all without me, including getting herself to the gym. :sigh:

Camille opened this adorable hat from Auntie Ginger and Calvin says, “Um, Mom? Isn’t that flower too big for her head?”

The morning of Camille’s birthday we woke up and went down to breakfast to find that Lucy had brought her a cake and a birthday card. I made the shirt that she is wearing, but not for her birthday. I just happened to finish it in the last 2 weeks so close enough.

Lucy was annoyed because she had ordered a cake with frosting to match the card and it was to say “Happy Birthday Camille!” with the number “1” written on top in frosting, but they put fruit on it instead. She complained that it was the Omanis at the bakery who always mess things up and back when Indians used to work there it was much better. That sounds totally racist, but it’s probably true.

There’s a recent “Omani First” movement/law that requires that businesses employ a certain percentage of Omanis. Since Omanis are not known for being very hard workers, sometimes to fulfill those requirements businesses will hire Omanis at minimum wage, but pay them to stay home. Then they employ Indians/Filipinos/etc to do the day to day operations to keep their businesses running successfully. Or you have Omanis that do work, but can’t get a birthday cake order right. 

Enough poly sci/econ for today — back to the birthday girl. She ate a ton of Lucy’s lasagna for lunch, and then it was time for cake. I’m not sure what Calvin is doing here besides showing off his mouth full of lasagna.

For her birthday present we bought her a rhythm instrument set so she can play music along with her brothers.

Caleb, impatiently waiting for me to cut his piece of cake, started licking the frosting off of Camille’s hand.

She liked the cake. She didn’t dive into it the the way that she does the rest of her food, but she was getting really tired by that point. She kept sticking her fingers into the frosting and then eating the frosting off of her hand (with some extra help from Caleb, of course).

Like my dad said in the comments of my previous post, she has had quite an exciting and well traveled year. I wonder how many countries she’ll add to her passport in the next 12 months and where we will celebrate birthday number two. Really. I’m wondering. I have no clue.

Since she’s a year old now, girly decided it was time to try some big girl tricks.

Last night the boys were in bed and Camille was crawling around downstairs with us. I thought she was playing under the stairs until I heard Carter call out, “Mom! How did Camille get out of her crib?” He found her crawling around on the second floor after she climbed both flights of stairs. I brought her back to the bottom and watched her scramble all the way up like she’d been doing it for months. I guess we’re going to have to keep those baby gates closed from now on.