I Heart Head Lice!Why my daughter’s case of head lice was actually a wonderful gift.

A nasty case of head lice truly made for a nearly perfect day.

Standing in the aisle at the grocery store, balancing a gallon jug of cat litter, I got a call from my daughter’s school. Just seeing that number pop up on my cellphone made me swallow my heart. “Come and pick up your daughter, she’s waiting for you in the office”, the front office person said. Was she injured? Ill?

Nope. She and the rest of the cheer squad, almost 20 girls total, had an itchy, nasty case of head lice. Really? LICE AGAIN?

You see, we’ve had head lice before. You might say this is not our first time at the nitpicking rodeo. In fact, last summer we spent over $350 going to one of those professional lice picking places where they use non toxic shampoos and rip (I mean, comb) your hair out with a Barbie sized metal hairbrush. So I was way down with the whole lice removal procedure.

After a trip to the drugstore to get the scary toxic lice shampoo, we set up our delousing station on the balcony outside. She sat in the light as I combed her glossy, waist length hair with a pink plastic nit comb. Hours went by. We talked. We listened to Taylor Swift’s 1989. We sat in silence. Sometimes the only sound, the spray of the delousing solution and the ravens cawing in the palm trees nearby.

There we were on a Tuesday. Just the two of us. No cellphone or computer between us. We talked. About school, about anime, about cats. About nothing as the light went from gold to amber to blue. And aside from the small creatures climbing through her hair; it was magic.

Yes there were countless loads of laundry. Every comforter, rug, pillow, sheet, and towel in the place got washed. (The only things that didn’t get thrown in the washing machine were the cats. And I did consider bathing them too).

But this day was a gift. My daughter is growing up so fast. If you have a teen you understand. (Here’s a post about what you understand once your child becomes a teen.) I sometimes feel like I’m watching her speed away from me on a bullet train towards adulthood. She’s growing up so fast. She’s pulling away from me, just exactly as she’s supposed to do.

But just for today we got to connect and be a mother and a daughter. She still needed my time and attention and help. She still needed me.

Maybe it’s strange but this day of lice removal will go down as one of my very best days as a parent.

So there we were, in the sun on the patio, me picking lice out of her hair. Not exactly a classic Hallmark card moment for most parents, but it was magical. Lice and all. I’ll take it.