A Lousy Louse-y Day

Yesterday was one of "those days''.  You know, the kind you wish you could just erase, or skip altogether.  And it wasn't just any one event which made the day awful... just the buildup of one thing on top of another.

I had great plans for yesterday.  I was going to make granola and granola bars, enchiladas with enough to share with a friend's family,  do some baking with the gobs of overripe bananas I have, start planning for meals and supplies for the village, etc.  But most of that didn't happen.

The day started off with a call to the clinic.  The evening before, Kaitlyn had stepped on a rusty nail and poked a hole in her heel.  As far as nail pokes go, it wasn't all that bad, but it did go into her foot and draw blood, so I wanted to see if she needed a new tetnus shot.  She did.  I was right in the middle of making granola bars when the clinic called me back to confirm that yes, K should come in for a booster, since it had been 6 years since her last one.  And they wanted me to come right then.  So I scrambled to finish up the granola bars and race out the door with K.  Now, K is the kind of person that works herself up so much that she's falling apart from the idea of something.  It doesn't even have to have happened yet.  So by the time we got to the clinic and back in the room for her shot, she was in quite a state.  She wouldn't even let me pull up her sleeve or let the nurse prep the area.  I was having nightmares of the experience when she had her 5 year old shots and we actually had to call all the available nurses into the room to help hold her down and still.  And now, she is just 6-ish inches shorter than me, and very strong.  It would have been an embarrassing nightmare!  Thankfully, I held her on my lap and she finally agreed that she could cry, squeeze my hand, etc, but remain holding still for the shot.  When the she got the actual shot, she did great, and I was very thankful.

Unfortunately, while she was sitting on my lap, I saw, to my horror, that her hair was teeming with lice!  Uggh!  I told her there were tons of bugs in her hair and she said, "Oh yeah, I thought I might have lice because my head has been itching!".  Good grief girl!  Why didn't you tell me!?!?!?!

So we grabbed some lice shampoo on the way home, and I got ahold of a friend and asked to borrow her lice comb (since my shampoo and comb are in the village where I assumed I would have more need of it!).  And then we were home to start the hair washing and de-lousing and washing all the bedding and such around the house.

I walked into the house, greeted by my granola bar mess that I had rushed out the door and left, and saw that something wet was covering my kitchen counter.  Upon closer inspection, I found that a bottle of cooking oil had tipped over and most of the bottle had leaked out the not-all-the-way-tight cap and over my entire counter, and was dripping onto the floor.

So there I was... my daughter's hair was crawling with lice, oil was dripping all over my messy kitchen, and E was screaming because he was having one of his "If I'm Not Being Held Constantly I'm Just Gonna Scream" days.  Thankfully, Matt came and helped me get the kitchen cleaned up and helped hold Elijah while I scrubbed and combed K's hair.  There were so many bugs in it, I had to wash it 3 times and comb it before I finally got the last wriggling little critter out.  And I was stripping beds and tossing sheets and blankets and towels in the wash.  We've been having lots of rain lately, and when it's not raining, it's been grey and gloomy, so I didn't know if the bedding was going to get dry or not.

Anyway, the laundry and de-lousing basically took the majority of the rest of the day.  I tossed all the rest of the kids in the tub and washed their hair with lice shampoo and checked their hair.  And because K often uses my hairbrush, I was paranoid that I have it too.  So I washed my hair as well and had Matt check it (twice, because I just wanted to make sure!)  Thankfully none of the rest of us appear to have any (which is amazing to me because there were SO MANY in K's hair).

I was thankful that the sun made a partial appearance for a couple hours in the afternoon, so the bedding pretty much dried.  Then I made up all the beds.

By this point, it was 4pm.  I have a Zumba class I've been going to (and look forward to all week!)  But I had the J's and Elijah with me and I wasn't sure how that would work.  Eventually I decided to just go for it and take them all with me.  The J's played outside and I brought E and a blanket for him to play on.  I figured, I could either stay home and cry, or go sweat.  So sweating won out.  He made it about half-way thru the hour, and then I had to Zumba while holding him (which really doesn't work that well, but I guess it was better than nothing).

I have to admit, in the midst of the yesterday, I couldn't see past the extra work and the stress of worrying if everyone in my house was going to get lice, and panicking over whether all the bedding would dry.  At the moment, everything just seemed so.... HUGE.  We've been hearing/talking about perspective lately.  About how sometimes you can be too close to something to really see it clearly.  This was one of those times.  It can be so easy to get caught up in the moment (or in blowing something from that moment out of proportion) and not see that maybe that thing really ISN'T that big of a deal in the whole scheme of life!  Yes, lice is a pain to deal with,  and messes can be time-consuming to deal with.  But they're not the end of the world.  And there are more important things to focus on.  So I'm trying to focus on being thankful that we managed to go for 9 years here in PNG without getting lice.  And being thankful that there was enough sun to dry the sheets, and for my washing machine.  And for good friends who loaned me a lice comb, and were ready to help with the loan of a clothes dryer if the rain prevented the sheets from drying.

Thankfully, today has been much calmer.  I've even managed to get some things done.  (and all the rest of sheets, blankets and towels washed and dry!)   =)