What comes around, goes around ...

Or is it, "What goes around, comes around"? I guess in this case it does not matter.

Some of my friends thought I was a little nit-picky, but you have no idea what that really means until one of your kids gets lice.

Wait a minute! you're thinking. Mandy's kids aren't in school and they aren't in daycare. How the heck could one of them have lice?

Well ... since my kids are not in daycare, I have two babysitters that take turns watching them through the week. My Tuesday-Thursday sitter is a saint, and if I had not hired the other girl first, I would gladly have taken her on for a five-day shift if she wanted it. My Monday-Wednesday-Friday girl? Well, let's just say that she is coasting along.

Anyway, two weeks ago, MWF Sitter called in sick because she had lice. She said, "I think I am cured, but if you want to skip today, I understand." We chose to skip. (As an interesting side note, while we were home that day Adam and the kids saw a skunk in our yard, and the kids and I saw a woodchuck. We live in the middle of town, so either of these events would have been unusual. Still, it made the day kind of neat, even if the sitter's absence was inconvenient.)

A week passed, and our kids showed no symptoms (although our neighbor spotted the skunk). The babysitter came back. Then, at 3:30am Tuesday morning, Gwen bursts into our bedroom and cries, "My head itches! I think I have lice!" I got up and spent half an hour picking through her hair -- nothing. But she went back to sleep, secure in the knowledge that she was clean.

Well, last night as I was getting her out of the tub, I saw something dark in her hair. I plucked it out -- sure enough an insect. And then I spotted another. And another. Soon I had a collection of ten lice drying out in a glob of hand sanitizer on a tissue on the counter. (And, in case you were curious, it turns out that head lice looks nothing like rice. So if you have been living under that delusion, I'll set you straight on that :). )

Let me tell you, the next four hours gave new meaning to the word "nit-picker" (and, for the less informed, a "nit" is an immature louse, so "nit-picking" really does mean "delousing".) First there was the hour of hysterics (all Gwen's), discussing our options (me: "Doctor"; Adam: "Listerene.") Then there was the rush to the pharmacy to pick up Listerene, lice combs, and (as it turns out) a "pesticide-free ten-minute cure" (I got both the Listerene and the pesticide-free, ten-minute cure -- best to be prepared. The worst that could happen is that we'll go around with medicinal-smelling breath for a month.) Then came blow-drying her hair (since the ten-minute cure requires dry hair), then twenty minutes to apply the ten-minute cure. Ten minutes passed and Viola! I got to spend the next two hours with the lice comb. And that doesn't begin to describe the house-cleaning and laundry we have been doing.

Count on Xavier to pick out the silver lining: "If Gwen has lice, the babysitter can't come tomorrow! Woo-hoo!" Sure enough, he was right: MWF sitter didn't want to catch the lice again right before her vacation, so she gave us a miss.

Poetic Justice: when she stopped by to pick up her check for her earlier work this week, she admitted to Adam that after our call, she checked her hair. Sure enough, her lice was back anyway.

Of course, we didn't laugh long. Yesterday was not the best day on so many levels (I had to be at work at 5:00am to patch databases, I almost had to have the van towed because I could not get it out of park when it was time to come home from work, and I discovered that the root problem for that is that the brake lights are out, so it is not legal or safe to drive anyway ...) Then, this morning, we discovered that yesterday we had managed to close the woodchuck up in the garage -- not a mess for the weak of heart.

But, as Gwen so aptly put it to Adam, "Look at the bright side, Dad -- at least it was not the skunk."

Issues

I was reading an article about how hard it is to diagnose girls with Asberger's Syndrome because outwardly their symptoms may manifest themselves differently than Asberger's in boys. It was kind of an interesting article, although I have to admit that I didn't feel a strong personal tie to it. Oh, sure, my kids have their own issues -- Xav has the attention span of a gnat, and Gwen is so tense she could probably deflect bullets -- but Asberger's is not one of their problems.

Or so I thought ...

The article described one of the puzzles they use to diagnose Asberger's Syndrome. It goes something like this:

1. Sally walks into a room and puts her favorite marble into a basket, then leaves.

2. Anne walks into the room, takes the marble and puts it into a flower pot.

3. Sally returns. Where does she look for the marble?

This puzzle is sometimes done as a mini-role play. The theory is, a child with Asberger's Syndrome is more likely to fail this test (ie, choose the flower pot) than a child without, because a child with Asberger's is unable to see Sally's point of view independently of his/her own (ie, I know the marble is in the flowerpot, Sally should too.)

I was surprised that it could be this cut-and-dry, so I posed the puzzle to Xav (without the role-play). Xavier answered it correctly right away.

Then I posed it to Gwen. She listened to the puzzle, pondered it, then said uncertainly, "In the basket, right?"

"Right." Still, it gave me pause -- Gwen is a very smart kid, a little socially awkward, perhaps, but surely ... "Why did you think about it so long?"

"Well, I thought she would look in the basket right away," Gwen said, "but then I thought, 'This is too easy. It has to be a trick question.' Where did you get this riddle?"

"It comes from an article about girls with Asberger's --"

A panicked look crossed her face. "YOU THINK I HAVE ASBERGER'S SYNDROME????"

I gave a sigh of relief -- this is the Gwen I know. All is right in the world.


We just came back from visiting Adam's relatives in Durham. Our niece Piper is a cute little girl, and, as her parents describe her, "Very three." Most of the time she is very happy, but sometimes she gets upset about minor things (as three-year-olds are wont to do).

When she starts tearing up about something seemingly trivial (ie, like not getting the pink cup), one of her parents will suggest, exasperatedly, "Why don't you cry about it? That always makes things better."

"No, it doesn't!" Piper retorts, always smiling through her tears.

Ah, if only parenthood was always that simple.