Nit Picking

Sometimes baby things are cute.  Babies are often, but not always cute.  Mine of course is the spitting image of his dad aka Ashton Kutcher (lucky me) and has already been frenched by the three year old hussy down the street. Twice.  Note to self: buy stock in Durex and Trojan before Sam's sixteenth birthday. And yes, I'm refusing to believe little boys have relations before that (still very young) age. 

I digress.

Baby stuff.  My daughter adores anything smaller than normal size.  I don't know where she got this affinity for tiny things.  It's not like I've ever swiped the tiny ketchup bottle from a hotel room service tray or eaten an entire six pack of mini muffins. Ever. So it was not a surprise to me that she said, "awww cute" after I plucked the first tiny nit out of her hair last Thursday and defined it as a baby louse.  Babies are cute. Even skin devouring bugs that induce severe gag-attacks in normal people make cute children. It's revolting and touching all at once. Sigh.

I raced to school shortly after getting the call from the somber sounding nurse about Ladybug's new "friends".  I pictured her bawling her eyes out in the corner of the nurse's station with a plastic bag tied around her head, children walking by the door laughing and throwing glue-sticks at her.  I mean. That's how I remember it going for me way back when.  Except it was rubber cement jars and the kids chanted grody girl grody girl to the beat of Sussudio .  Much. More. Brutal.

Not the case.  The crying didn't start until treatment of the little critters.  Stinky shampoo, hours of combing and hunting for dust speck sized thingies that are practically the same color as her hair.  She scoffed at both of my husband's solutions. 1. Shave head (as if) and 2. let loose a spider in her wonky-do to take care of the problem overnight.  He's so helpful in times of desperation.

A few posts ago I revealed this photo of my daughter simply for my own giggles...

Turns out, her hair wasn't actually "possessed" and through no fault of her own (more likely the fault of Crazy Hat day during the previous week at Kindergarten) she was unknowingly providing food and shelter to a small army of Lice.

*shiver*

Thursday afternoon was spent washing, combing, picking.  Friday I furiously messaged her father to help with the pest relief project and he came to drag her and "the gang" back to his house for further infestation treatment. Saturday went by and I heard nothing from them, so I figured either all was well, or they were both eaten alive in their sleep.  Thankfully....thankfully? Yes. Thankfully, she returned home with only half an army's worth of bugs on her head and I reluctantly continued to battle. Because I can't help myself, this weekend left me quite crabby. Crabby. Ha. That was funnier in my head.

I'll spare you the details and just post some pics that I couldn't help snapping.

Smiling.  She doesn't know she has hairy leg and un-pierced ear humiliation ahead of her.

Dun da dun dun dunnnnnnn.

"Look! TWO combs." woo. hoo. don't wake up the baby.

 

This was right after she read the box and asked me what pubic lice meant.  I'm all about honesty (and alliteration) these days, so I said "bajingo bugs, babe" and she made this face.

Today was the big test.  Her first ever field trip was today.  I drove her to school and we both kept our fingers crossed as the nurse meticulously combed through her shiny coif and hmmed a lot.  If she saw any bugs or nits we would have to eat the sack lunch at home and re-comb, re-pick, etc all night again. 

............And I'm proud to say that she is right this minute at Green Meadows petting farm feeding goats and pigs with her classmates. 

Farms are pretty bug-free, right?