Nitpicking

The school called me yesterday to tell me that they had found 3 nits on Kira. There's quite a thing with lice going around the school; a whole bunch of Kira's classmates have been sent home within the last week or so, many with actual live lice.

Yesterday was X's day with the kids, so I called him to tell him to pick her up. He freaked out. He went on about how he didn't want her at his house "infesting" his kids (um, hello, SHE is your kid) and his dogs (head lice don't live on dogs) and his house. He wanted me to keep her because "we" KNEW my house was infested, and his wasn't (um, hi, nits hatch in 6-10 days--and she's been there within that time at least twice), and he wasn't going to have her.

I told him his day, his kid, he was getting her and I wasn't, end of story, buh-bye. Then I hung up, grabbed my bag & left the house. As I was leaving, the phone was ringing and it was D, calling to "reason with" me. I ignored the call & let her talk to the machine, then I ignored my cell when she called *that.*

I headed to my parents' house, because I hadn't seen or talked to them for a while, and also because Dad was in the school system for 35 years and he was very qualified to check my head to see if I had anything. (I didn't, and Dad also said I had the cleanest hair he had ever seen. Cool.)

Visited & caught up for awhile, then headed home to find seven more messages on my machine. Two were D. One was just repeating again that it didn't make sense for Kira to go to their house and risk exposing all of them and the kids to it, and would I please call her back. The next one was a little more hysterical, she was at the store about to pick up the treatment, and she "won't have it", she won't have Kira at her house and risk the other kids and have chemicals in the house and she was calling X and telling him to pick Kira up and drop her off at my house. (ha-ha! I wasn't home!) The other five were hang-ups from them.

There was also a lovely set of skidmarks in the dirt turnoff into my driveway, where I am assuming X rather forcefully executed a turn when he realized I wasn't home.

I was really pissed that he was getting all bent out of shape on this. I could have taken Kira, I wasn't scared of her or of her "infesting" the house. I didn't, because I didn't like how X was assuming that he could just thrust the problem at me and he wouldn't have to deal with it. When the kids are with him, they are WITH HIM, whether they are sick or irritated or whatever.

I hope to hell he didn't treat her like a leper and make her feel ashamed or embarrassed. Bad enough that he picked her up and then drove to my house to leave her, making her feel unwanted. She'll get extra cuddling from me when she gets home today, to demonstrate that I'm not ashamed or scared of her.

I *have* done quite a bit of washing of bedding etc and vacuuming. I picked up a treatment kit because she'll need a followup in about 7-10 days, along with frequent checking in the meantime.

Too much drama yesterday. I particularly like how they assumed that Kira walking into the house was "dangerous." People. Lice are spread by contact. Kira didn't even HAVE lice, she had nits. Get the nits out, problem solved. Vacuum & wash stuff she'd had contact with in the last several days in case a hair with a nit on it had fallen out. No need to panic and freak out. And believe me, I'm good at the panic-and-freak-out thing, so if *I'm* calm, it's gotta be okay. mk