Of all the things that have happened in the past seven years, I can honestly say that the lice ranks in the Top Three events that really sent me around the twist. Like, the lice almost did me in.
It wasn’t me that got the lice (thank goodness, which I know isn’t totally altruistic but…thank goodness). It was poor Babygirl, who took those bugs LIKE A CHAMP. And though I did not get the lice (thank goodness – oh, God, I said it again), I did sit by Babygirl for the entire week she was getting treated for the lice at the Lice-Infested-Family Extortion Company. (Also known as Hair Fairies. And seriously, they are really nice at Hair Fairies and so very soothing and real lice-eliminating pros, and I do not for a minute regret hiring them, but I do have to call them out on the extortion. Because, $800. For ONE CHILD.)
Spending a whole week at Hair Fairies will make a gal itch whether she has the lice or not.
So as you know, we spent several weeks this past summer in Tahoe — and I DO promise I’m working on a Tahoe go-to guide for families, I really am — and Babygirl tends to get a little dry skin in Tahoe. Because of the altitude, it’s dry. And the drought. Drier.
So we thought very little of it when Babygirl started scratching the bejeezus out of her bedhead every morning in Tahoe. In fact, we thought, Oh poor Babygirl needs some Head and Shoulders. And we bought some. And that was that.
We were in Tahoe for two weeks. We got home, with one week to go before LittleMan’s back-to-school madness. There was much to do. But on Tuesday, Babygirl’s teacher pulled me aside: “I know that itch. You gotta check her.”
Woe be to the woman who ignores the advice of the veteran preschool teacher. I hadn’t started the car before the three of us (LittleMan, myself, and Babygirl) were booked for an emergency check at Hair Fairies.
LittleMan was negative (if utterly injured, being pathologically averse to strong smells and liquid applied to his head). I was negative (by some miracle, which I attribute to the copious amounts of bleach applied to my scalp monthly — no, it’s not natural). My husband was also cleared (two days later, on my insistence that I would have a nervous breakdown if anyone in our family ever got lice ever again).
But sweet Babygirl was itchy as hell, and riddled with bugs and nits, which are NOT the same thing, contrary to popular understanding. Because here’s the thing: you can kill bugs. You can drown ’em and poison ’em and all that good stuff. But those nits (eggs, to the uninitiated) are impervious. They are SUPERBUGS. They ought to be studied by National Security because so help me, you could drop nuclear weapons on those things and they would survive.
So your only choice is to comb. And comb and comb and comb and comb for days and days and days and days until the comb is clean.
Enter Hair Fairies.
Babygirl and I (and my husband, to give credit where it is due) spent a total of eight hours at Hair Fairies that week. Babygirl could not attend school (of course) and I could not work until she was cleared, and we could not go places where other children might inadvertently come into contact with anything attached to Babygirl. And THEN, because her preschool continued to see cases pop up, we stayed at home another week to be safe, puttering around LittleMan’s first week of school in a haze of tea-tree oil, conciliatory ice creams, and abandoned conference calls.
Babygirl was amazing. She learned to embrace her mandatory pigtails and the spa-like scent that has since become her signature, because I insist on bathing the children in tea-tree oil nightly. She watched movies, crafted, snacked, and packed and unpacked her Hello Kitty purse for hours in that combing chair. She earned stickers and tattoos and plastic spider rings every hour. She did not cry, once.
It almost makes me feel guilty because I cried a lot. Between Tahoe (good) and lice (bad) I was missing a full month of work. LittleMan was back to school and I was utterly unprepared, with no after-school programming in place and a slew of missed deadlines piling up on my shoulders. I was hamstrung by a daily routine that included doing two non-neogtiable loads of laundry, spraying all the toys with tea-tree oil spray, vacuuming the wall-to-wall. I was trapped in my apartment and my car with a frustrated child who herself would be starting a new school in a matter of days and had been robbed of her transition out of preschool.
My husband and I celebrated our 13th anniversary on the last weekend of the Great Lice Heist. We had had grand plans: send the kids to a sleepover, catch the early show of Beach Blanket Babylon, eat late on the town…but in the end we were just too drained (and too out $800) to do it. So we promised ourselves we’d make a farmer’s market feast and toast at home.
I set out for the farmer’s market that Saturday with a kind of euphoria: Babygirl was officially lice-free, having passed her “guarantee check” with flying colors (talk about a nail-biter!). I was alone for the first time in almost 30 days, with a celebration meal to prepare. I bought meat, heirloom tomatoes, fresh bread, olive oil, and a flatbread for lunch.
Only when I went to unpack my haul did I realize I had returned home with the flatbread and nothing else. I was baffled, then slowly understood with some horror that I had systematically left each purchase on the counter of the next stop, a trail of produce leading to an anniversary dinner that would never be prepared. I was a crazy woman roaming the farmer’s market with empty bags, money flying, so damn distracted, so completely overwhelmed by the lice, by back-to-school, by the missed work, by the soccer cleats that didn’t fit, by my sudden, abject fear of indoor play spaces and other children who may bring the lice back into my home. I could not even manage to buy dinner.
In retrospect, it all seems so over-privileged, so very “first-world problem” to be undone by an event that is essentially quotidian, a rite of passage for any child and, by extension, any parent. I’m kind of ashamed. But what it reveals is the power of routine: a routine that balances on the head of a pin — or in this case, on a parasite the size of a sesame seed. Shake the foundation and the whole thing kind of comes tumbling down.
I have since regained my sanity (such as it is) and both Babygirl and LittleMan are ensconced in Pre-K and 1st Grade, appearing none the worse for the lice or the chaotic return. I have made peace with the report that will go out two weeks later than planned, and finally paid off the credit card bill with the Hair Fairies on it. Babygirl and I reached a friendly agreement that cutting off all her summer hair was preferable to pigtail braids every morning. Farewell, highlights.
But she still gets the tea-tree oil. And probably will, for the rest of her young life.
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