Does Your Head Itch Yet?

Lucy told me she thought she had lice on Wednesday. "My head ITCHES!" she said. I filed this under Dramatic Fake Illness, alongside "I can't see" (wants glasses), "My ankle stings" (wants out of PE) and "My finger is broken" (wants out of PE and after-school gymnastics). Then when I was volunteering in her Spanish class Friday morning, I watched her sit and scratch. And scratch and scratch her head. If she had been a dog, she'd have lifted her hind leg up there to scratch it. My own head began to itch as I helped make the Mexican hot chocolate. I shuddered, realizing we might have a problem.

After I left Spanish, I returned to my work and...forgot. The deeply skeezed out part of my psyche was overtaken by the busy Pollyanna part (this is the same coping mechanism that allows me to spend so much time in hotels without pondering the existence of bedbugs). Lice shmice, my brain said.

But this morning on the couch, cuddled up with my darling children watching "Curious George," Lu lay her head in my lap. So sweet, until I noticed this rash blooming from around her ears and neck. I shuddered. My scalp began to itch. I got Internet and a flashlight. One look confirmed the lousy truth. For those of you who don't know (and I hope you never do), lice are harmless. But they are really fucking gross. Bugs on your head? Yes, actual bugs. Crawling. On your head.

The first thing I did — after making Lu get off the couch and away from us and all fabric surfaces — was to send an email to the people Lu may have infected in the past two days. This seemed like the mommy version of calling recent *ahem* partners to tell them you'd been diagnosed with a harmless but gross STD.

Then, I went to CVS to get some lice treatment (The shame! I swear the checkout dude scratched his head after he put the box in the plastic bag.) Then, we shampooed and doused and poisoned. Then, like ma and pa gorillas, we picked the bugs from Lu's head. This was an hours-long process.

Good news: none of the rest of us seems to have it (despite a desperate case of psychosomatic lice for yours truly). More good news: she was a trooper, and we had a fun day rewarding all her cooperation with the nit-picking. Bad news: if for some reason this treatment fails, the next remedy has us slathering her head in mayonnaise under a shower cap overnight. Gross as that sounds, it's better than bugs on your head.

The Negotiator, Jr.

A couple of days ago, Milo was merrily jumping on the couch, and stopped when I caught him. Me: "Milo, no jumping on the couch." Milo: "I not jumping, I wiggling." [Wiggles to prove it.]

When you tell him it's time to do something he doesn't want to do, whether it's going to bed or changing his diaper, he holds up one finger and says, "Two minutes." In fact, his tell when he's got a poop is that I hear him across the house saying, "Two minutes."

When he wants an item he's not supposed to have, he looks up at you from under a veil of blonde bangs and whispers, "Can I have this?" And you let him have it. Because you cannot resist.

Resolved: Write

Instead of using my New Year's resolution to flagellate myself (and yes, I still need to get organized, be happier, eat more vegetables and drive with more courtesy), I am going to keep it simple: write. Recently, for the first time in maybe 15 years, I rediscovered the joy of writing. Which is not to say I haven't written in 15 years — I (sort of) write for a living. But I hadn't plunged into a writing project this way. I wrote with the abandon and enthusiasm that I did when I was a kid banging out really bad novellas on an Apple IIc, being told by my mom to GO TO BED. I had fun. More of that in 2012.

Now that I have confessed, gentle readers, all 11 of you, whose support I need...pretend I merely made a resolution to exercise (which I did — exercising the creative muscle). In advance I will tell you:

No, I am not writing for any reason other than my own pleasure. No, it will not be published anywhere. No, it is not about you. No, you cannot read it.

Like you would an exercise program, help me with your enthusiasm for my efforts, with no expectation of evidence of my results?

Christmas Break(down)

We had a lovely break filled with family and friends and fattening food. Really, we did. And not to dismiss the cheer and gratitude, which we had a lot of, we also had 15 days of togetherness, with alternately too much and too little activity. We were about ready to kill each other yesterday. So I was thrilled to send Lucy off to school. I was less than thrilled when she walked back in the door 15 minutes later: SCHOOL DID NOT START UNTIL TODAY. Leaving us with another day to occupy her very busy brain, which we were able to do with Honour's help. Milo, mercifully, did have school, but when Lu and I picked him up, he was worn out from the re-entry to his normal routine.

I took them both to the Gap (mistake — my apologies to the people trying to buy cheap sweaters in peace), then to Central Market, where Milo gave me a big wet raspberry and smacked my forehead, earning a timeout in the pasta aisle (apologies to those people as well). Lucy's real shenanigans didn't start until we got home, when she and Jason fought over whether she should clean her room or watch a movie on the iPad. She "ran away" (to the backyard), leaving this note:

They're both at school today. With the professionals. Where they belong.

He Sees You When You're Driving

On December 2, I was in a hurry to take Milo to school. I sat in my car at the light on 24th Street that turns left onto Guadalupe (and don't worry, this story has no accident-related drama). You know, the really short left-hand turn light because of all the effing pedestrians, the one that lets approximately 4.5 alert cars through before turning red? Well I was at that light, the fourth car in line to turn, and the person in front of me, this minivan that was moving in slowmo, like it was on a wildlife tour of the Drag, was about to make me miss the light. So I honked. A restrained "yo," as opposed to an all-out "movegetouttheway." But still, a honk. A rude-ass honk. The minivan moved.

So when I miraculously made the light behind this sloth, I saw the minivan SIGNAL RIGHT TO GO INTO THE PARKING LOT OF OUR PRESCHOOL. (Gulp.) What else could I do but drive around the block? I had to hide.

Milo said, "We not go school we go Pie house?" Busted. I said, "Uh, maybe. We'll see Pie, okay? We'll go to school in a few minutes." "Two minutes?" he said, which is the only measure of time he can articulate beyond now and never.

The shame! I drove around some blocks and called Pie. She laughed (a lot). We discussed the logistics of who I might have honked at. The associated politics. My frustration and remorse.

It didn't matter who I honked at. This moment was a fitting reminder of the persistent advice of Stacy's mother, the lovely Jane Lively (who collected coffee cups but didn't drink coffee): be sweet.

Oh, and be sweet all the time, apparently. Because Santa is watching you. Or maybe just the driver of a minivan from preschool.

Synonyms

Milo is obsessed with these granola bars for kids, which, despite their organic ingredients, are little more than cookies in the shape of granola bars. Yesterday, he wandered around the house, wailing, "I WANT Z BAR! I WANT Z BAR!" Lucy trailed behind him, mocking his wails. Me: Lucy, don't make fun of your brother.

Lu: Mom, I am not making fun of him. I am copying him, which the same as imitating him, which is more like mimicking him.

Me: Lucy, don't mimic your brother.

Lu: Okay.

Milo: I WANT Z BAR!

Sign of the Times (or Siri is Your New Mommy)

One day last week, while trying to decide if she needed a jacket, Lu hollered across the house, "Hey Dad, ask your phone what the weather is gonna be like today!" Jason did not blink. He picked up his phone and said to it (without irony), "What will the weather be today?"

AND IT TOLD HIM. Oh, and when I tried to refresh his memory about this moment, he did not remember. Because he talks to his phone more than he talks to me. Only with clearer diction and more patience.

These are very modern problems we are dealing with.

I am going to train Milo to ask the iPhone to change his diaper, sketching the final dark scene in my semi-non-fictional play "Siri Poppins."