Waging War

I have had enough. I fed up of the battles. I am waging war.

We am already at the stage where if a member of my family raises a hand to their head I leap across the room like a woman possessed.

My front line are relatively sorted although they can be a little unreliable. My second in command takes instruction pretty well. He can be ordered to check for signs of occupation provided I let him sit down and bring him a cup of tea. Although I don't feel I can totally trust him.

I do my fair share of checking for enemies too. In fact you could say I look for them with a fine tooth comb. No stone, I mean hair, is left unturned.

When intel is accurate we swoop like a crack team of commandos. Chemical warfare is in the cupboard waiting along with the best removal system available. It's messy and unpleasant. As is the state of the head of hair in question the morning after. I need to bulk buy shampoo and conditioner.

But you know what parents, your country needs you. Well the sanity of my family does at any rate.

Because I can have all the weapons of mass destruction possible but if you, yes I'm talking to you, don't check your flipping child's hair for nits every week... well there is just no point. They hop back on to my child's head and start another party. I may as well just accept occupation and start giving them names.

Just check them. Please. And regularly, not just when school sends you a reminder.

In the meantime I will carry on with my war on nits. I'll be spending the next few hours watching tight plaiting styles on Youtube and boiling my hairbrushes.

Ranting About Bugs

Allow me to take a moment to divert from summer holiday memories and to rant about illness. Specifically children's illness.

We can't have a holiday, or even a month go by to be honest, without some kind of illness or related drama. Over the past seven years we have spent four nights in Halifax children's hospital when we should have been on holiday, investigated mysterious bouts of urticaria and kidney function, experienced the trauma of our very little daughter having birth mark related operations, been to A&E following a trolley man meets head emergency, zoomed at speed on a beach buggy in Wales to check out a weird spikey crab in the bottom of foot thing, and that's not even mentioning of course the illnesses (like having chicken pox on Christmas day), bouts of nits and regular bumps on the head and rest of the body.

It's pretty normal I suppose and thankfully none of it the level that some people go through. And I really am grateful because I know in reality things could be a million times worse.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I want to scream "that's enough". Tonight was one of those nights.

As I listened to Tilly recount the story of the nurse successfully removing the tick's leg that has been stuck in her ear since last Friday I carefully selected a specific flannel and towel each. Because it is important to avoid the transfer of yet more verrucas and possible shingles to the other child and the grown ups. It's just lovely isn't it?

I declare tonight that I have just about had enough.