What Lice Taught Me

As you recently read, W had his first round (I’m sure there will be more)
with head lice this past summer (cue: itching). Upon reflection I realized I actually
learned a few things from the experience.

Because, as you have also read, I don’t quite work in the most pro-parenting/supportive
office environment, I didn’t miss any work as a result of the lice. Honestly, you may be
thinking, “Well, obviously, who would take a sick day for lice?” Really it would have been
a much-needed mental health day for me (reminder: I am pregnant and cranky and it
was about 45°C here in Toronto during the incident).

One day, on the walk from the parking lot, one of my co-workers from another
department came running up behind me yelling out my name. I was in the middle of
composing a text message to one of my single friends and holding back tears as I
congratulated her on something but inwardly cursed her joy (not very nice, I know).
When this co-worker (who has two pre-teen kids) saw my face she said, “What’s going
on?” with a tone that implied she could tell I was about to have a full-fledged melt-down
on the sidewalk. I burst into tears about lice, and mouse shit, and how my husband
wasn’t checking my hair well enough, and how the daycare wasn’t posting signs about
the lice and, oh, just about everything under the sun. She listened totally patiently as I
said cliché things like, “I know every kids gets lice, but…” and “I know it doesn’t mean
that our house is dirty, but…” and when I finally stopped, she told me a story.

She told me that when her son was three months old, she got lice from her niece. She
said she was postpartum and had to have her mom come over and do the lice treatment
on her TWICE. She also confessed that while her baby never got lice (thank god!), one
time a bug fell from her head onto him while she was changing his diaper! She said
she was bawling and bawling and felt miserable and terrible. But you know what? Her
story made me feel better, and she knew it would. She trusted me enough to confide in
me about a time when she felt like a shitty, out-of-control parent, and was able to laugh
about it now. It made me feel good enough to actually make it to my desk and move on.
Which really was the most anyone could have done for me in that moment.

This is the kind of support women and co-workers need to give each other. Just
compassion and understanding. When I told my boss why daycare was calling, I caught
her in the bathroom ten minutes later checking her head for lice in the mirror. I kid you
not — this happened. I swear, who could make that shitty act up?

When I caught her, she turned beat red. Yeah, as if I could say the word “lice” and a
million microscopic eggs would jump across cubicles from my head to yours. (And for
the record, I never did get lice myself.)

Thanks to that supportive co-worker, and all the people like her who know how to listen
and comfort without one single ounce of judgment. I wish there were more people like
you out there.

-Tightrope Mama

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


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