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Monday 15 October 2012

The ‘L’ Word


Well, W hit a childhood milestone – LICE!

It started while we were at a family cottage (yes, with the husband’s family,
OBVIOUSLY). W stumbled in for Cheerios and was violently scratching the crown of
his head. I saw a few scabs — mosquito bites, I figured. But the scratching continued,
so I went to the pharmacy and told the pharmacist about it. He suggested (overpriced)
eczema shampoo. The ‘L’ word was never mentioned.

Fast-forward THREE days: we are home from the cottage, and despite my husband
saying “it’s not lice” for like the nine hundredth time, I delve in to W’s sunny blonde head
a pluck out what is unmistakably a BUG. It has legs and a head and is honestly just
disgusting. I practically fling it into my husband’s eye — “What. Is. That?” He googles
it; “lice,” he says matter of factly. As if this is the most painfully obvious question in the
universe.

So, off we go to the local pharmacy, where the kind, young fairy-like pharmacist (she
seriously looks 18) keeps a fair distance and answers my questions (which I am asking
with a lot of intensity). Husband drags W away at some point in the middle of this
because he thinks my reaction to lice is going to traumatize W for life.

We buy two bottles of NIX (at $25 each) and a special lice comb ($15) and head home to start the fumigation. I remember having lice as a kid, I remember all my stuffed animals tied up in garbage bags, I remember leaning over the tap as my mom combed and combed and combed for hours. I let out a big 8-months’- pregnant sigh: motherhood, fuck you.

At home we run the bath, we pour the vile shampoo on his precious baby head, and
I run around washing every towel, every pillow, every scrap of cotton that has been
in contact with a living human in the last 7 days. I feverishly vacuum the couch, the
mattresses, the CAR SEAT — literally there was NOTHING left un-cleaned. (Except
under the sink where all the mouse shit is!)

I continued this hot-water laundry and vacuuming for 7 days. Every night W was in
heaven as he sucked back warm milk and watching Chuggington on repeat while I
picked his head with my bare hands like a good like chimp mom. (The $15 comb was
virtually useless on his thin hair.)

After 5 or 6 days, I stopped seeing any of those disgusting little nit-egg things in his hair
and started to relax. I made my husband check my head twice a day, convinced he saw
lice in my head and was just lying to make me go away. In the end, the lice went away
and I stopped washing and drying our pillows daily, but even now, a month later, I am
still itching and itching just thinking of my short stint as a the official de-licer.

P.S. My iPhone refuses to spell LICE and constantly autocorrects it to “LIVE” — which
is pretty ironic.

-Tightrope Mama


[image: Marquee letters]

2 comments:

  1. I had it when i was 10. I had long super curly hair, it was wretched. I am also one of 6 kids, so you can imagine what my Mom was going through! I feel for ya!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, I can laugh about it now. but at the time..... no

    ReplyDelete