Lice, Interrupted.

That's right.  In the mostly uncensored version of my life that I'm documenting here, I have revealed several embarrassing episodes of my life.  And last week, I was presented with another disgusting opportunity to examine the sweet futility of motherhood.  Lice.  LICE.

Marley had been complaining about an itchy scalp for at least a few weeks, and I had been giving her cursory checks and rationalizing that she was probably getting the same dry skin on her head that always shows up, especially, on her reddened, cracked hands every winter.  The night before Easter, I gave the girls a shower and scrubbed their hair with the dandruff shampoo I've been using because YES I HAVE DANDRUFF AND ADULT ACNE and GOOD LORD CAN I PLEASE CATCH A BREAK?

And combing through Marley's hair after the shower, I saw a small bug scuttle across the top of her head.  [Thudding-Movie-Trailer-Type-Noise].  I picked it out and put it on a square of toilet paper and calmly continued to comb, while beginning to whimper on, and deflate from, the inside.  Afterwards, I googled "lice," and then [Louder-Thudding-Noise] I made the diagnosis.  I whimpered out loud to Todd, and then Marley added a precious P.S. to the note she was writing to the Easter Bunny.

Todd ran out to get Deadly Shampoo, and we all soaked our heads in pesticides, too panicked to consider that we were actually slathering the thin skin near our brains in pesticides.  And then Todd and I each sat a daughter on our laps and began picking through her hair, lifting paper-thin sections at a time, pinching out the eggs glued to the hair about a half-inch from the scalp that you just would never see unless you were peering intently under the white light of a something like a dentist's lamp.  It was so late that Rudy fell asleep in the middle of it all, and let's not forget the frantic loads of laundry and the bagging of all stuffed animals, coats, and throw pillows that continued on into the night.  And the vacuuming, and then Todd and I combing through each other's hair.  We were in bed after 1:30 a.m.

And the next day, we hosted Easter.  Heather, Danielle, and their daughters arrived with their hair in buns, and we joked that we were like the Duggars or some other denim-loving Christian family embracing modesty and old-fashioned notions of beauty.  The kids were instructed not to hug.  And I continued to run the washing machine, the dryer, and the vacuum.  I continued to comb out the girls' hair and pick out eggs (I really only ever saw two actual bugs), which took up to TWO HOURS for each little, patient, but also miserable and whiny lady.  Every day.  And Todd continued to check me and declare me lice-free.

And then this.  On Monday night, while I was teaching, Todd was in charge of combing the girls, and he declared them lice-free.  But when I was braiding and spraying their hair before school on Tuesday, I realized that he was probably misdiagnosing me because of the dozens of practically microscopic eggs  in their hair that he had clearly missed.

So I made an appointment at one of those pricey We'll-Take-Care-Of-Your-Disgusting-Problem-For-You lice salons and, $200 later, my scalp and hair had been treated with targeted heat and combed through with the heavy-duty, monstrous Nit-Free Terminator, and I had bottles of dimethicone in my lice goody bag so that we could suffocate any nits or just-hatched nymphs that we'd been missing.  We all wore the thick, sticky oil overnight and scrubbed it out the next morning.  And I have spent every day after that combing through conditioner-soaked hair with the Terminator for only thirty to forty minutes at a time, feeling sweet relief because I could see a light at the end of the lice-obsessed tunnel.

And now, it's over, and I can say that I have survived one of my parenting nightmares.  I also know more than I ever wanted to know about lice, but if you ever run into this problem or know someone who has, I will gladly be a resource.

Lice is overwhelming, but it is also more manageable than you might think, if you only know what to do, and smearing poison on your head and repeatedly disinfecting sheets in steaming hot washing machine cycles is not as necessary you might think.

Also, you've probably been scratching your head the whole time you've been reading this.  The power of SUGGESTION.  It is no wonder that commercials work and that clever Target displays entice home decor goods right into my happy red shopping cart.