steak a la lice carcass

alex got lice again. okay, so it's been more than once. three times maybe? i can't keep track. it's survival. you get really good at blocking out the memory of pulling bugs from your kids hair. blocking out how keen your vision is when you find nits the size of a needlepoint. erasing the experience of back breaking pain while hovering over your child and combing the one trillion foot long strands of your kids hair for HOURS.

it happened again. roughly a week before our vacation. i saw her from across the room scratch her scalp. it's a reaction i get now when either of my kids touches their head. a cold sweat, a panic, my heart skips a beat. in the course of a minute you go from panic, to fear, to anger, to OMG, to WHY ME?, to I AM MOTHER HEAR ME ROAR I'VE DONE THIS BEFORE I'LL DO IT AGAIN, to you better check your self little lice assholes, because i'm coming for you.

i can almost hear the music in the background as i pump myself up for the big fight. like rocky. this is happening. this is life. this is LICE people.

so i go to the cupboard where all the lice supplies are. because i now have a cupboard for this. it's a whole shelf dedicated to RID, and combs, and you know...other bug removal paraphernalia. it's right above the shelf with everything random we've ever owned and never used and right next to my highschool memory box. so you know IMPORTANT STUFF.

and i gasp when i find we are out of the 'says it kills lice' shampoo but i kind of think my kids are immune to it now bottles.

DAMN.

so a call to sean to pick up more at a crazy $20 a bottle and alex needs practically 3 of them. has anyone ever actually gone bankrupt dealing with lice? i'm practically sure it's happened. why is there all this controversy over health companies covering birth control when what we really should be talking about is lice shampoo and tax rebates, and food stamps but for lice. LICE STAMPS.

so sean comes home with the shampoo and we wash and we comb and we comb 40 times more and i think i've got it all. i've got my system down. i have the comb, and the paper towel to swipe the bugs on, and the bowl of water to dip the comb in and i'm combing and swiping and dipping. sean is helping from afar by handling dinner and lunches and homework. we are a team when it comes to lice. TEAM LICE. i get the bugs, he does everything else. and by everything else, i mean being my personal slave boy so i'm all, 'sean, take this comb and this brush and put it in water to soak' because in case you don't know LICE 101, lice don't drown for like 4 hours and at this point i feel super confident because i totally know what i'm doing. we got this.

so i take the bowl into the kitchen, and i throw away the towels and i scratch my head because when you're dealing with lice your head itches like all the time and then i pop alex upstairs to the shower and my dear husband is heating up leftovers and it's only 7:45 we are so on top of this night. only 15 minutes til bedtime and all we need to do is eat dinner, have alex do her homework practice her violin, and do 30 minutes of reading. i mean, STOKE right?

so we rush the shower, and race downstairs and we've got hot steak and risotto leftover from last night. I mean, YUM!

this lice day is actually feeling pretty awesome.

so the kids started eating and i'm heaping my plate when i see it.

i see the lice bowl that was used to dip the lice comb in, and that lice bowl that was just housing several dozen dead lice bodies and nits is sitting on the counter half covered in saran wrap filled with last nights steak.

i gag, like FOR REAL GAG. and scream at the kids to spit out their steak and i'm all 'SEAN, where did you get this bowl' and he's all 'it was on the counter' and i'm all, 'did you wash it???' he's all ' it looked clean to me' and i'm panicking 'this is the bowl i used to wash the lice in' and then OMG expletive expletive, dinner is ruined, our life sucks, things were so awesome a minute ago but right now i want to die because we just fed our kids steak a la lice carcasses and then i see it. i see my brushes and combs bobbing in a pot full of last nights pasta water.