The 5 Stages Of Grief When Your Kid Has Lice

Just this week I took my daughter to get her haircut after school. Sitting in a chair shaped like a taxi cab, the stylist gingerly dug at her scalp with the edge of her comb. “Mom, do you see this?” she asked me, pointing. “Look.”

“Huh? What?” I peered down at my kid’s head. Surely those round white specks that look exactly like lice eggs must be dandruff, right?

1. Denial

“Are you sure it’s not dandruff?” I asked the stylist.

She nodded yes.

“BUT ARE YOU SURE?!?!” I screamed.

“Yes.”

“BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT!!!!” I howled, falling to me knees in a pile of hair. “THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE, I BATH MY KIDS EVERY NIGHT!”

(This is a lie. Sometimes we skip a day because we are lazy/tired/want to throw them in bed ASAP so we can hurry the eff up and watch Orphan Black. Also lice has nothing to do with bathing. We all know this, and yet we still ask.)

The stylist handed me $70 worth of lice shampoo and a metal comb and shoved me out the door.

2. Anger

“How did this happen?!” I muttered furiously as I yanked the tiny comb through my daughter’s tangled, egg-filled hair.

“How did this happen?!” I muttered furiously as I ripped apart every bed, couch and chair within a ten mile radius of my house, tossing all the things into the washing machine.

“How did this happen?!” I muttered furiously as I disinfected hairbrushes, car seats, and my own head.

3. Bargaining

“Please,” I whispered to the $30 lice shampoo I bought in a panic. “If you just do your job and kill all the lice eggs in my kids’ hair, I promise to write a glowing review of your work on my mom email list. And my mom Facebook group. All the mom Facebook groups!”

I turned to the bottle of preventative lice spray/detangler that I bought along with the shampoo. “If only I had found you sooner,” I whispered. “None of this would have happened.”

Then I poured the whole bottle on my head.

4. Depression

I picked up my phone, dipped it in a bucket of alcohol, and wondered if lice is something you can text someone about. I decided it is not.

“Hello, [redacted friend who invited us over for a play date on Saturday and whose bed my child was jumping in for a solid twenty minutes]? I have something awful to tell you. My family has committed the greatest play date sin of all time, and we never deserve to be in your presence again. Farewell.”

“Kate, lice happens all the time,” said my calm and cool friend. “Don’t be ridicu-”

I crawled under a pile of just-steamed sheets and didn’t come out for three days.

5. Acceptance

That’s right, I’m cool with lice now! I’m a pro at washing my kids hair with an allegedly non-toxic foam every night and then combing it out with the metal equivalent of a toothpick while she watches that weird new teen Dora cartoon. I can spot lice eggs like it’s my f*cking job. Come at me lice! You are the Starks to my Lannisters, and I shall destroy you all and then pay my debts! What, you don’t get my mediocre Game of Thrones reference because you are tiny bugs who feed off of scalp crumbs? Too bad!