resurfacing

If I don’t come up for air soon, I will drown. Pardon the melodrama, but this has been an extraordinarily rocky week.

On Sunday evening, I noticed Winston was scratching his head in earnest. It’s winter and every one of us has a dry, itchy scalp. But, my kids are school-age, and, well, you know where I’m going with this...head lice. Of course, my diagnosis wasn’t confirmed until 9 p.m., a few minutes past bedtime on a school night.

John, incredible partner that he is, ran out to Snyder’s Drug to buy a nit kit. Starting around 9:30 p.m.—on a school night—I applied the treatment to Winston’s precious head. Here’s the process: wash with regular shampoo, rinse; rinse with a 1:2 solution of vinegar and water; towel dry hair; apply caustic lice shampoo, allow to sit for ten minutes, lather, rinse; towel dry (with a fresh towel). Thank goodness we had cut off his locks around Christmas, and thank goodness he has blond hair, which has provided a nice contrast to the tiny reddish-brown bugs.

Since Simon and Winston are such good brothers, they put their heads together over just about everything. And they wrestle like bear cubs. Of course, Simon also has head lice, too.

After dinner each night, the treatments are conducted simultaneously with the following: homework; Simon’s fifteen minutes of reading; stripping and making beds; washing the clothes worn that day, as well as the hats, coats, bed linens, and towels used during that night’s treatment—to the exclusion of all other accumulating laundry (i.e., I’m nearly out of clean underwear); and bedtime routines.

Of course, our clothes dryer is on the fritz, making a very loud, high-decibel, eardrum-piercing screech. The repairman made a diagnosis on Monday night, but the part won’t arrive until next week, and repair isn’t scheduled until the week the 18th. John had the repair guy oil the part, but we were warned this measure would only help for one or two loads. And, we’ve got many more loads to do.

Last night, John was tapping is feet while working at his computer on the lower level of our home. He noticed that his tapping sounded sort of splashy—tons of water on the floor. John peeked into the mechanical room and noticed the water had soap bubbles so we think the flooding is somehow related to the washing machine. Oy! Now add mopping plumbing mishaps to the evening routine.

I absolutely cannot get head lice. I have a seriously thick mop of hair. It would take hours to comb and pick. As I search my own head each day, I’m learning how to distinguish a louse or egg from the glint of silver (oh, there’s a forest of gray close to my scalp) and the dandruff (why hasn’t anyone ever mentioned the “snow”???). But my paranoia has barely abated. Of course, I have sympathetic itches, and I swear I something is running around on my scalp.

We will get back to our regularly scheduled programming soon, but if it’s all the same with you, I’d like to skip January next year!