Gratitude Lately

Yes, I know I'm woefully behind. I'm going to condense some gratitude today, because I have three days to catch up on, and I need to go spend some time doing other things to prepare for the holiday season that won't go away.

And yes, before you ask, I'm struggling a bit with the whole 'Thanksgiving, (what would have been) 29th birthday, Christmas-trifecta that is snowballing down upon us.

Mostly, today, I am grateful to NOT have lice. For this story, I must begin at the beginning. I'm sure all of you remember the great lice incident of August. If not, I wrote about it here and included pictures here. After a couple weeks of cleaning, bagging, shaving, and picking, we finally rid ourselves of the pest. A couple weeks ago, Janice called me and let me know that she had discovered lice again on several of her children. With great trepidation, I called a neighbor of mine to have her immediately come over and check my head while I combed through each of the children's heads. Lindsey declared that I had nits, but found none on the boys. Janice was already headed to the store to pick up RID for her household, and graciously stopped by my house to re-check us all that evening. Upon further inspection of my head, she declared the 'nits' to be dandruff, and I happily banished lice-thoughts from my head. A few days later, Russ and Mary showed up at my house to watch the kids while I went to class. Mary dropped the bomb--she had found live lice and nits in her head. I dropped what I was doing and checked both her scalp and Russ', and then ushered Mary up to my bathroom to begin her treatment. Mary spent the day avoiding my furniture and close hugs, and a great deal of time was spent at their house de-lousing her head.

Fast forward to yesterday. I had been up a portion of the night with a nasty stomach bug, and was looking forward to having only Brooklyn at the house for a few hours. I had barely re-entered the house after dropping Kadon off at preschool when the phone rang. It was his preschool teacher, informing me that Kadon had complained of an itching scalp. Upon inspection, she (and three other teachers) all found white substance on his scalp. My heart sank, and I was nearly undone at the thought of repeating the process of lice again. I immediately called Russ and Mary to request that they come down to help me tear apart the house and do the necessary cleaning, then placed another call to the school nurse at Jeremy's school and asked her to pull Jeremy into her office and check his head. I reasoned that while I was stuck treating Kadon, I may as well find out if Jeremy needed to be treated as well. Happily, the school nurse found no nits on Jeremy. I picked Kadon up from preschool, then drove home and put Brooklyn down for nap while Kadon waited for me in the bathroom. I quickly doused his head with the lice-killing shampoo, and while his head soaked I stripped all the bedclothes from all the beds, gathered all the pillows and stuffed animals from the boys room, and the clothes that Kadon had worn for the past several days. I threw it all in a giant heap down the stairwell, and then rinsed Kadon's head. Once I got him downstairs, I started a load of laundry, and put in a movie. I was determined that this time-I would not shave his head. His hair has just barely started to grow back, and it holds the promise of curl in it's wavy texture. I settled him in front of me, and started painstakingly going through his hair strand by strand.

It quickly became apparent to me that there was no lice to be found. I found his normal flaky-scalp dandruff, and no nits and certainly no live lice. I eyed the enormous pile of laundry in the stairwell, and gritted my teeth. When Russ and Mary arrived, I had them each inspect Kadon's head--and mine for good measure. No nits were found. Nevertheless, we went ahead and washed all the bedding, pillows, and clothing I had thrown down. We stopped short of bagging up all the animals and toys-assuming that between the three of us, if there were nits to be found we would have seen them. When Janice came over again later that night to pick up something, she also checked Kadon's head. Again, the declaration was made--dandruff, but no lice.

This morning, I nervously buckled Kadon in the car, intent on taking him to preschool and having his teacher check his head with me. I am happy that we were all right. I'm happy that he doesn't have lice, and that his teacher was humble enough to admit that she was wrong. I'm also happy that she apologized profusely for causing me stress and frustration. I understand her position, and appreciate that she would treat any other child the same--to keep MY kid from getting lice, I can appreciate any measure taken.

After all is said and done, though-I am mostly thankful NOT to have lice. And I think, surely, that is worth at LEAST three days worth of gratitude.