Nitpicking

This morning a rash was creeping down Youngest Child's neck. The need to take her in to have the bumps checked out by an actual doctor pushed the plan to meet a friend at a local hibachi restaurant for lunch right out of my head. In fact, at the time when I could have been seated and perusing the munchings and crunchings, I was standing in a doctor's office trying to get new insurance information straightened out. When the, "Where are you?" phone call came, it took a moment to figure out just where it was she thought I ought to be. I asked if she was willing to wait on me as the potential bright spot in a less-than-pleasant morning dawned. There was still hope for a yummy lunch in good company and labeling the wee red spots on my daughter's head.
Erin was seen in the office after our initial delay in trying to be sure the practice was paid for our visit. Sure enough, symptoms that sounded like an allergic rash to me and our pediatrician did not look like a classic contact dermatitis. As the doctor moved Erin's hair around to better examine both sides of the munchkin's neck, she uttered a sound somewhere between, "Ooohhh" and "Oomph". She then informed me that she knew the origin of Miss Erin's rash. Erin did not go back to school. I called my lunch date to beg off. And Erin and I drove over to the middle school.To ask that Evan and Katie be pulled out of class and checked for lice.

I believe the word I was searching for was along the lines of, "Crap". And once Katie's head was found to be similarly infested, "Craptacular". Evan went back to class, but my girls with their "social condition" (A big, insincere, "Thank you!" goes to the state department of health for determining that head lice are simply a social condition rather than a health condition warranting removal from the public school classroom.) were driven back home to await delousing. After three pharmacies, the prescribed fumigator scrip was filled and picked up. It was applied to this year's deductible and both girls' heads. The house smells like Pine-sol and turpentine. Bleah.

Tonight at bedtime I will be sitting with a long-toothed, stainless-steel comb nitpicking while the washer and dryer continue to run non-stop hot water washes on every bit of fabric the girls have so much as looked at in the past two days.