And tell me everything is gonna be alright

My clean house lasted all until my sweet babes woke up this a.m. I knew I should have asked the health and environmental people to come over at 6am. That way my kiddos wouldn't have a chance to destroy. But alas, there was shredded cheese in every room by the time the nurse from the health department, her intern, and the environmentalist from the environmental department, as well as his intern, finally arrived at 10.

Luckily, they were all super nice and at least pretended not to notice it. They asked a million questions for paperwork. Asked about our daily lives, what we eat, where the kids spend time, etc., etc. On paper anyway, we are pretty amazing, I must admit.

The nurse made me laugh. She was all, "So what does he eat? Does he eat meat to get protein?"

I told her, "Yes. Mostly he eats meat, fish, fruit, and spinach and kale. He does eat other veggies too, but not to the same extent as the other foods."

To which she replied, "Oh, he doesn't like sweet sugary snacks? That's good!"

I kind of laughed, probably totally inappropriate, and said, "He loves chocolate. He'd eat it for every meal. But we try to keep that stuff out of the house, so it's not something he has every day."

"Wow, I wish I could get my kids to think sugary snacks weren't an every day occurrence."

I didn't say a word, no need to go there.

She tested H and my lead levels, promising to have the results in two weeks. I guess that's what you get when it's free medical health care. If I'd realized it would take that long I'd have just gone to the doctor and gotten the results in five minutes. But as is life.

The nurse was nice enough, but in a not overly obvious way made it really sound like this is all our fault. She gave me a lot of information sheets. One of which says that at this point it is unlikely that we "can prevent a lifetime spoiled by the irreversible damage caused by lead poisoning." As if I didn't all ready feel like shit. Whoever wrote that informational sheet claiming that my son's life has been "spoiled" should be shot. Just saying (obviously I'm not for gun control...)

After she left the environmentalist toured the house and took lots of samples, asked lots of "does he play with this?" "does he put x in his mouth?" questions. But in the end, he kind of looked at me all apologetic and said, "There really just aren't any red flags. You live in an old house, but everything I'd tell someone to do to prevent this, you've all ready done."

So we wrote down a long list of what is may possibly could sort of maybe be:
1.) door knobs
2.) register vent coverings
3.) knobs on the windows
4.) plaster on the walls?
5.) trim in the house
6.) wall paper
7.) bathtub
8.) dirt in house plants
9.) car seat

And then he also swipe tested a bunch of other things as well. Because he wasn't convinced with any from the list.

Who knows?

We should have results from the lab in roughly three weeks. Until then I can suspect everything in my house is spoiling my son's life.

But he was insanely nice and helpful, so I give him about a million and three brownie points for being super sympathetic and not making feel poorly about this whole thing.

After they left Miss H asked if we could go out for lunch and get ice cream. So I piled them into the car, drove to our local health food store which also serves meals, fed us all, did our grocery shopping, which the kiddos super love because they get to each get one peanut butter cup from the bulk bin section (see, they loooove sugar!!).

When I piled them into the car and started the engine, "Danny's Song" was playing on the radio. Immediately I turned it up. And really, it's such an appropriate place for this to end.

"People smile and tell me I'm the lucky one,
And we've only just begun.
Think I'm gonna have a son.
He will be like she and me, as free as a dove,
Conceived in love.
Sun is gonna shine above.

And even though we ain't got money,
I'm so in love with you, honey,
And everything will bring a chain of love.
And in the morning, when I rise,
You bring a tear of joy to my eyes
And tell me everything is gonna be alright."