What a Week

We decided to start potty-training my almost-2-and-a-half-year-old on Saturday, despite my better judgement. The weekend before the first full week of school. And only roughly two weeks after switching to a toddler bed.

This was the same Saturday that I woke up with a scratchy throat. I had a sinking suspicion that I was catching the cold both of my kids already had, but I wasn’t too worried about it yet.

Then on Sunday I felt worse. Still not awful, but definitely worse. 

Meanwhile my head would NOT stop itching. I was thinking, “Man, I really have to call that dermatologist tomorrow. This is one serious case of dandruff.” I mean, the itching was out of control. I took a shower in hopes that some dandruff shampoo would help until I could get to the skin doctor. 

That’s when I saw them: BUGS. In my hair. Not one, but THREE little bugs. I screamed and called for my husband to come look. He confirmed my worst fears: I had lice. And that meant all of us probably had lice, because the kids’ heads had been itching for a few days as well. 

As a teacher, I know that lice likes clean hair and anyone can get it, you shouldn’t be embarrassed, etcetera etcetera. Well, all of that went out the window and I PANICKED. I went immediately and bought a lice removal kit and an extra bottle of shampoo while I was at it. It took us three and a half hours, but we treated the whole family. We also stripped all the beds, washed all the sheets, towels, and dirty clothes in the house, threw away all our pillows, and sprayed our furniture. I was NOT letting these things stick around.

Something you may not realize about lice is that you can’t just treat it once and be done. The box says you have to go through everyone’s heads with the removal comb EVERY SINGLE DAY for a week after using the shampoo, then use the shampoo again in seven days. Let me tell you, my family has a lot of hair.

In the meanwhile, it was still my first full week of school. At a brand new school for me. Where I am now doing by myself the amount of paperwork that four people together used to do. 

Then my cold got worse, and turned into a sinus infection. I had to miss a day of work, which only made my paperwork load even worse because now I was a day behind.

So basically, the rest of the week my routine was like this: Get up, get everyone ready and to work/school, clean up the pee from around the potty because the toddler wants to pee standing up, take medicine and try to breathe, work on paperwork all day long, drink water and hope no one notices that you just spit mucus into your trash can, scarf down lunch, work on paperwork some more, blow my nose for the thousandth time, stay late working on more paperwork, go home, take more medicine, keep trying to breathe through the congestion, comb through everyone’s hair with the lice comb, help with homework, help the toddler go potty, clean the bathroom rug which now reeks of pee, wash towels/pillowcases/clothes (because the lice could still be lurking around, refusing to die), eat something, get the kids to bed, then back in bed, then back in bed again, then go to bed without actually sleeping much, since you can’t breathe and/or the decongestant keeps you awake. 

And while you are lying awake, trying to sleep, question your sanity.

The good news is, we survived. We are now all lice-free, my paperwork is mostly done, our afternoon routines are reestablished, and the two-year-old, though not yet potty-trained, is doing just fine. And after 2 rounds of antibiotics, I am finally feeling better.

There should be some great lesson here, but I’m not sure what it is. Parenting is hard? Life is hard? I don’t know. Just the fact that I lived through the week and can almost laugh about it is probably a testimony to God’s grace. Mostly I just wrote it down so that in a few years I can look back and shake my head and laugh as I remember that time we decided to potty-train our toddler the same week school started back and I was at a new school and we all got lice and I had a sinus infection…or not. We’ll see.