Archive for February, 2012

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Sometimes


2012
02.23

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Sometimes, when you are very busy with your very important life, and your baby son (who is very busy being a boy and not a baby) wants your attention so much he says “Mommymommymommy” in several different charming voices, then puts both his tiny hands on your cheeks and turns your face toward his to look right into your eyes (he is scowling up through long blond bangs that need a trim and long blond eyelashes that are really too much) and says, finally, “Mommy ”

You stop.

This pause gives you room to think, “This is a good life. And this kid really should run for office.”

Then you are back to the brushed nickel drawer pulls and the laundry and the current legal environment surrounding Pinterest. But you are smiling.

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Lice. Twice.


2012
02.14

Posted in lucy, milo | 1 Comment »

When I checked Lu’s head on Saturday and found lice AGAIN, I nearly cried. When I found a bug on Milo I actually did. We began the process of lice treatment all over again, only this time, I did what I should have from the start: instead of going for the most expedient, chemical (read: nuclear) option, choose the thorough, non-toxic, actually effective route. Otherwise known as Lesson 1: do whatever Mary Ellen, internet detective, diplomatically suggests you do in the first place.

And this new method did work — Lice Ice is this minty, all-natural gel that coats the hair and suffocates the bugs and eggs. Milo enjoyed his menthol mohawk. Lu howled for about 6 of the 9 hours she wore the Lice Ice, offended by the smell, the stiffness and how bad her hair looked. Not that it mattered what she looked like: no one invited the people of the Louse House anywhere on Saturday.

When I washed their hair and combed it out Sunday (Milo sat patiently, as long as I gave him an M&M every 45 seconds), I was confident we’d beaten the bugs.

Until I took Milo back to school Monday. After I casually mentioned to the school director that he’d HAD lice, she marched him up to her office to inspect his head. And found a few nits. Ejected.

That’s when I called the Texas Lice Squad, this group of hair hygienists who wear scrubs and magnifying masks and pick the bugs out or your money back. They checked all three of us, found nothing on me, one possible nit on Lu and a handful on Milo. “Pretty clean,” they said admiringly, but treated us anyway and charged us $168. Worth every penny and then some. I don’t clean my own toilets or my own teeth — why could I be trusted to get these heads clean? Lesson 2: with this and so many other tasks in my life, I should really just hire the experts.

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Does Your Head Itch Yet?


2012
02.04

Posted in lucy | 2 Comments »

Lucy told me she thought she had lice on Wednesday. “My head ITCHES!” she said. I filed this under Dramatic Fake Illness, alongside “I can’t see” (wants glasses), “My ankle stings” (wants out of PE) and “My finger is broken” (wants out of PE and after-school gymnastics).

Then when I was volunteering in her Spanish class Friday morning, I watched her sit and scratch. And scratch and scratch her head. If she had been a dog, she’d have lifted her hind leg up there to scratch it. My own head began to itch as I helped make the Mexican hot chocolate. I shuddered, realizing we might have a problem.

After I left Spanish, I returned to my work and…forgot. The deeply skeezed out part of my psyche was overtaken by the busy Pollyanna part (this is the same coping mechanism that allows me to spend so much time in hotels without pondering the existence of bedbugs). Lice shmice, my brain said.

But this morning on the couch, cuddled up with my darling children watching “Curious George,” Lu lay her head in my lap. So sweet, until I noticed this rash blooming from around her ears and neck. I shuddered. My scalp began to itch. I got Internet and a flashlight. One look confirmed the lousy truth. For those of you who don’t know (and I hope you never do), lice are harmless. But they are really fucking gross. Bugs on your head? Yes, actual bugs. Crawling. On your head.

The first thing I did — after making Lu get off the couch and away from us and all fabric surfaces — was to send an email to the people Lu may have infected in the past two days. This seemed like the mommy version of calling recent *ahem* partners to tell them you’d been diagnosed with a harmless but gross STD.

Then, I went to CVS to get some lice treatment (The shame! I swear the checkout dude scratched his head after he put the box in the plastic bag.) Then, we shampooed and doused and poisoned. Then, like ma and pa gorillas, we picked the bugs from Lu’s head. This was an hours-long process.

Good news: none of the rest of us seems to have it (despite a desperate case of psychosomatic lice for yours truly). More good news: she was a trooper, and we had a fun day rewarding all her cooperation with the nit-picking. Bad news: if for some reason this treatment fails, the next remedy has us slathering her head in mayonnaise under a shower cap overnight. Gross as that sounds, it’s better than bugs on your head.

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The Negotiator, Jr.


2012
02.02

Posted in Milostone | 1 Comment »

A couple of days ago, Milo was merrily jumping on the couch, and stopped when I caught him.

Me: “Milo, no jumping on the couch.”
Milo: “I not jumping, I wiggling.” [Wiggles to prove it.]

When you tell him it’s time to do something he doesn’t want to do, whether it’s going to bed or changing his diaper, he holds up one finger and says, “Two minutes.” In fact, his tell when he’s got a poop is that I hear him across the house saying, “Two minutes.”

When he wants an item he’s not supposed to have, he looks up at you from under a veil of blonde bangs and whispers, “Can I have this?” And you let him have it. Because you cannot resist.

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