Smack in the middle of an insane weekend, E and I found ourselves home alone. She in the shower, me sitting in the next room playing a mindless Facebook game while trying to ignore laundry, work to be done, messes to be cleaned, and a headache of unknown origins.
“Mom, my head is kind of itchy.“
First thing to pop into the head is, of course, “oh shit. lice.” But E has proven herself immune. Several friends have battled with the little buggers, her sister has had a few run-ins, and E has remained miraculously clean. So it CANNOT be lice.
Nevertheless, my sigh was a heavy one when I said, “Okay, once you get dressed I’ll check your head. Do you think it might be lice?“
“I don’t know.”
“Does it feel like things are crawling on you?”
“mmmmmaybe.”
[cue another sigh before donning the rose colored glasses]: ”Well, you have just started taking daily showers, AND it’s getting cold outside, so maybe your scalp is just dry.“
“mmm.”
So while she dressed, I sat, while starting another round of the mindless game, imagining how lice would change my weekend:
- My uncle who is staying with us, along with his wife, 10 year old son, and 12 year old daughter-with-hair-to-her-butt … should they be told when they return from visiting their son at the local university? Or should I try to get all the clean up done before they return for dinner?
- E’s sheets were clean before I handed the bed over to the uncle and the aunt — but I didn’t clean her comforter, or her pillow shams on the extra pillows. Crap. I have to clean all the sheets again, all the comforters, and now also the ones in J’s room, since that’s where E slept last night with the Aunt and Uncle in E’s bed … And remember that shortcut I took earlier? And just folded and put away the towel that had been on the towel rack to dry, shrugging while thinking, “what? It just dried a clean body.” A clean lousy body, and now it’s in the cabinet, with what had been REALLY clean towels. So now I have to clean ALL the towels.
- Lice treatment. I don’t have any. I’ve only used the stuff twice, and I’ve honestly felt that we’d outgrown this mess. I’ll have to go get some. [CVS being a 4 minute walk away, this wasn't the worst of the potential problems.]
- I won’t get to work on those assignments that have a Monday at 4 p.m. deadline. The ones that gave me the justification to be sitting at home right now rather than on the sidelines of J’s soccer game along with D and the other soccer dads. Instead of working, I’ll be sitting on the couch with E’s head in my lap for hours on end while I pick through her very thick and almost very-long hair.
- Wait … what? E’s head in my lap for hours? With my fingers in her hair? And her having no choice but to deal with it, rather than saying, “Mom, stop!”
Why on earth, despite #s 1-4 totally sucking, did #5 make me smile a little inside?
Probably because I knew she didn’t really have lice, so all I really had was the image of her head in my lap for hours on end, and not the reality of the suckitude that was the laundry and the telling of people who needed to know, and the general week to 10-days nastiness that would come if she did have lice.
She eventually came and sat in front of me. I started prodding around her head and said, “Oh! There’s a bug! Gross!“
“Really? Really?”
“No! Just kidding!“ general laughter ensues.
Then, of course, as punishment for the laughter, I really see a bug. And then a little patch of other lice-related nastiness.
I did tell the Uncle, and dealt with the look of horror that crept over his and his wife’s faces. And we told the friend that E had been with the night before (who then also found some nits on her head). Last night, I dutifully checked the school’s policies on lice, and after D and wrestled with whether or not we should report the incident to the school (the policy was ambiguous), we decided that we should. Mostly because we have no clue where she got the bugs from, and I’d rather that whatever parent that may be in the house with that other buggy child be clued in to the fact that lice are afoot, and check their child, and deal with their buggies before they head back E’s way. Not because I think E is contagious – it was much more selfish than that. But the nurse was surprised at hearing the news — apparently, they’re usually done with the lice by the time they hit 8th grade. That’s my E for ya.
But at least I got not one but TWO lice-picking sessions, with E’s head on my lap, and Buffy on the screen for all to enjoy.
Mmm. Spike.
