Too Afraid To Title This One.

I guess it was bound to happen at some point. Four kids doesn't put me in very good odds of being left out. And sure enough, it happened.

Thursday morning I was preparing breakfast for the girls. It was 6:30. Matt was out of town. (Of course. Things like this only happen when he's not here.) The little kids were sleeping. And Megan and Paige slowly rolled into the kitchen.

"Mom?" Paige asked, "will you put my hair in a pony tail?"

I reached for the brush and pulled back her hair. Uugh. Can I actually type it? Can I actually say what I saw?

Alright.

Here goes.

I saw lice. Lots. And lots. And lots (thousands!) of lice. I choked. Seriously? Was this just a bad dream?

"Paige," I choked, "You have lice." I think she stopped breathing. She didn't move. Or talk. Or cry. She just stood there, staring at me in disbelief. Then I checked Megan's head.

Figures. They do share a bed after all.

I rushed to the drug store and, $110 later, returned home with shower caps, lice shampoo, combs, mayonnaise, vinegar, an electric pic that zaps the eggs and everything else I could possibly find to rid our lives of this unwelcome surprise.

We started at 7:00 that morning. Strand. By strand. I pulled each minuscule egg from Megan's hair. Paige waited, patiently, sitting on the floor, afraid to move.

Three hours later, I was still working on Megan's hair.

I started to realize the weight of this overwhelming task facing me. How. How? How! How was I ever going to get this done, and wash the entire house, and take care of Jane and Mitchell, and fumigate, and, and, and...

Then the phone rang. It was around 10:00. My friend Kathy was calling to ask if she could drop off some boxes. "What are you doing?" she asked. I 'fessed up. She showed up ten minutes later and stayed for the next seven hours.

We didn't take a single break. We worked on those girls until 5:00 that night. And the entire time I kept thinking, do I actually have a friend that is nice enough to sit here and pick lice out of my kids' hair? Do I actually have a friend that doesn't care that I haven't showered yet, that I'm still in my pjs, that my house is a disaster, that laundry is piling up on my couch and that might get lice if she gets too close? I couldn't believe her kindness. I would have died without her.

Poor Paige. She had the worst of it. For the past while, Paige has wanted hair like Rapunzel. "I'm growing my hair down to my waist," she's told everyone she knows. But after two hours of straining my neck over hers, I sighed. Two hours and I'd hardly made any progress. There was too much hair. Too much lice. At this rate, it would have taken me four days straight to get through her hair.

"Paige," I paused, heartbroken, "we have to cut your hair." I gathered her hair in a bunch and cut straight across. Then, for the next six hours, did my best to remove the curse while secretly wishing I could just shave it off and be done.

Paige was sad. But her sister really stepped in. "Paige, I really like your short hair. It looks really cute on you," she cheered. Paige thought about this. She didn't say anything for a while until, finally, she sighed. "I will try to like my short hair," she said, determined.

By the time I finished with their hair, said goodbye to my life-saving friend, cleaned up the de-licing room and started on laundry, it was way past bedtime. I gave the kids cereal for dinner, put them to bed, started more laundry, turned on the vacuum (only to have it break three seconds later), sat down to call my sister and started to cry.

I was exhausted.

I didn't get to bed till way past midnight. But the best part of this experience was four hours later, when I was awoken with breakfast in bed. The girls had slept on my floor that night (I hadn't had time to fumigate their room yet). Paige woke up first. Her rustling woke up Megan. I was about to greet them when I heard Megan whisper, "Let's go get breakfast for Mommy."

I lay there quiet, half-asleep, tickled by their thoughtfulness. Several moments later, all four of them struggled with the breakfast tray into my room. Their faces shone with love as they offered me a bowl of grape nuts and a piece of toast. A large note lay atop the tray. "Dear Mom," it read, "Thank you for all of that work you did yesterday. We love you."

That was quite a way to start this new day of de-licing and cleaning and de-licing and cleaning.

Lice wasn't (isn't) fun. But I got two extra days with the girls, just hangin' at home. Granted I was picking through their hair, but it did give us extra time to talk, and read, and watch movies. I got to see my oldest daughter try to comfort her sister. I realized a friend in the truest sense of that word. And I felt strengthened by an outpouring of love and understanding from my very own kids.

Paige loves her short hair. Megan even got hers cut too. Jane wants "lace" because she wants to wear the shower cap. And Mitchell is afraid to even breathe the same air as the girls. And, despite the fact that I don't have a single lice on my head, it itches. Like crazy. Probably with insanity.

I'm pretty sure I didn't agree to lice when I raised my hand to be a mommy. But here I am. Surviving it just fine. Stronger than I thought I'd be. In fact, last night as I picked through Paige's head, I actually didn't even mind pulling those suckers off.

Yikes.

That's slightly disturbing.

Did I actually just write about lice on my blog?

Heaven help me...