The question I am asked most often on this blog and in my emails is “How is Morgan?”

So I figured today, I would give you an update.  She is still smart as ever, always happy, enjoying her summer vacation, and drives me crazy everyday.  Yes, I could end here – but here are some details.

The school year ended great.  Morgan won awards every quarter and her teachers just rave about her.  All her scores for the entire year were the best they could possibly be.  Her gifted teacher said “Morgan more than met the challenge of being the youngest student in the class” and she scored the highest grade possible.

The fact that she is smart is wonderful, but what I am more proud of, is her behavior.  Those of you with little ones understand the daily behavior reports teachers send home.  For the entire school year, she never once scored below the top level.  She is really a great kid to be around.

That is of course, when she is quiet.  The girl never stops talking. NEVER!  I know this will be a good thing as she grows up, but right now it makes me feel like a terrible mom; because I am constantly saying “please stop talking!!” (well, sometimes in those words, and sometimes a little nicer).  And she has started talking so low – like she doesn’t understand that her talking too much is not the volume it is the quantity.  When she is not talking, and sometimes when she is, she is bouncing, jumping, dancing, moving – I get dizzy when she is around me.  It wears me out.

She did venture off to Girl Scout camp for a day this year.  This is something she earned for selling so many cookies for her troop.  She was very nervous about camp, but loved it and next year plans on going to the overnight camp.  I have to say that Girl Scouts is one of the best organizations I have dealt with and we are looking forward to many more years of participation.

One thing I did not like about Girl Scout camp was the infestation of head lice Morgan ended up with a month later.  Of course, I do not know if it was camp that did it; be she was so infested everything I read said she had to have them for 30 days or more.  Count back 5 weeks and she was at camp.

So we went on a week long vacation to Florida (yes, I live in Florida – we only went 80 miles down the road) and took the kids to several theme parks; Universal, Islands of Adventure, Busch Gardens.  The following week, I went to Mobile, Alabama for a conference for work.  Two days into the conference I get the call from Rick – Morgan has Lice!!!

That poor man always has to deal with bad stuff when I am out of town.  So he did the first treatment.  I got home a few days later and found more live creepy crawlies and did another treatment.  We combed her hair for hours every other day. And a week later we did a follow up treatment.  During this time, I was reading everything I could and found a ton of info about non-toxic treatments.  Of course I understood why people would want non-toxic (chemicals and all around your kid), but I just wanted them dead.

About a week later I found out why non-toxic would have been a better choice – Morgan’s hair was destroyed.  It was breaking off to the touch and her scalp was in terrible shape.  In the picture above she has lost about 3 inches and before school we will cut off another 3-4 inches.  It is split, knotting and just dried up.  I have been doing intense conditioning treatments and her scalp is getting better.  I am hoping by the time school starts the flakiness has stopped.

So there is the long and the short of it.  It is summer vacation right now; I don’t send her away anywhere, she stays home with her dad and brother playing with her toys.  She goes back to school in 2 weeks.  I am hoping for a teacher that gives her more homework and makes her write more.  She is a great writer and her 1st grade teacher didn’t assign very much.