Flash-Back Friday

I enjoyed reading a friends blog (Chats) this week, she did a post in response to being "tagged".

When you're 'tagged' you answer questions and then tag some other friends and they have to answer those questions on their blog. I've never been tagged and I'M NOT ASKING TO BE, but this particular 'tag' interested me because it asked what you were doing 10 years ago, 5 years ago, etc. and it got me to thinking about what I was doing 10 & 5 years ago. It just so happens that 5 years ago I had quite a bit going on. ~ Believe it or not it's kind of a funny story. So, I thought I might post it for posterity's sake.

Then I remembered another friend (shoe box blog) who used to do posts on her blog on Fridays called 'Fun Find Friday'. I thought this was a great idea not only because she has great ideas but the title was catchy and cute - alliteration makes everything cuter.

With these two ruminations in mind and because I'm always up for a happy jaunt down memory lane I decided it might be fun to have my own regularly scheduled, alliteratively titled, Friday posting. I'm going to call it 'Flash-Back Friday'. I may even have a guest author or two, mainly my husband. He has some stories that are hilarious. Given the choice our kids would rather hear his 'growing up' stories than mine any day.

So come try-on a pair of my pants and walk with me a spell each week. You may get a chuckle or two, maybe a tear or you could be bored to tears but mostly I'm writing them to have them written down. Someday my kids may enjoy having my/our stories written down. Who knows.

Now for the Flash-Back.

Imagine a freckle faced, blue eyed, brown haired little girl - me. For the most part I was carefree, I loved to dance, play in the mud and climb trees, dress-up, and play dolls. My one fear, a major and all encompassing fear was a minuscule little mite known as a louse. My fear of one day getting infested by lice was always in the back of my mind. When we went to the movies I usually took a jacket with me so I could put it over the back of my seat so I wouldn't get lice. Even when we went to amusement parks I wondered if I might get lice from the seats on the rides. Luckily I never did.

~~~Flash forward.~~~~

Spring 2003 I was pregnant with our fourth child, Mr.Man. We lived in a cozy little house in Grants Pass. Pregnancy has never been kind to me, I don't get as sick as some people, that is I don't constantly throw-up but I am constantly nauseated, and exhausted. Believe me it doesn't take long for that condition to wear on your nerves. I have places to go and things to do, a family to take care of. Taking the time to be under the weather is not conducive to my mental well being. I was in this fragile condition and state of mind when my worst nightmare became my reality.

The elementary school where Banana attended Kindergarten did regular lice checks because they had a real problem with those little parasites. One day after dragging my exhausted body to meet Banana at her bus stop after school she informed me they'd had a lice check that day. She went on to say that they weren't sure if she had lice or not so they sent her to the office to have a re-check. When this news really hit me, when it completely sunk in I felt even sicker than I had been feeling for the days previous. I decided I needed to know for myself so when we got home I checked through her thick, silky blond hair. Sure enough. There they were. The little beasts were living on my sweet innocent little girl. I felt like my head was detached from my body and my arms were working on their own.


My mind swam with all of the things I was going to have to do to get rid of the vermin. Go buy lice shampoo & comb, apply shampoo to all of the kids and comb through their hair, wash all bedding, pack up all stuffed animals (of which we had more than a few), vacuum everything and on and on. But first I called my Dr. to ask what I could do if it turned out I had lice. The answer was I couldn't use any of the over the counter shampoos but I could try mayonnaise. So I set to work. Where I found the strength I don't know. I only suppose I must have received divine help.


The worst part was our vacuum. To say it sucked would be giving the machine too much credit. It was a vacuum after all and sucking was what it was supposed to do. Unfortunately it just wasn't very effective, but it was all I had. I decided I was going to have to pray the bugs into the vacuum. So I prayed and vacuumed, vacuumed and prayed. I believed that Heavenly Father would have to have mercy on this tired pregnant stressed woman and He did.


I treated the boys' hair and luckily they didn't have any sign of the creatures on them. Banana had to have her long luxurious hair cut but we were able to get rid of the vermin.
The effects of this on my psyche was not good. My head constantly itched. I kept having my husband check me for the bugs but he never saw any sign of them. Still my head itched and itched. I decided I must be going crazy, that the stress from having to deal with all of that cleaning while I was pregnant was just too much and I had lost it. Then one day while I was in the shower preparing to wash my hair I looked at my shampoo bottle, as I read the name of the shampoo and the ingredients it dawned on me that the shampoo was made mostly of fruit juice and I'm allergic to most fruits. Not deathly allergic but allergic enough that they make my skin itch when the juice gets on me, and I had bought the shampoo on the day we discovered Banana had lice.


I switched shampoos that day and my head miraculously stopped itching. We got rid of the lice. Keeping the stuffed animals in the garbage sacks for three weeks was murder for the kids -but kind of nice for me. And the rest of my pregnancy was fairly low key.

So there you have it. My first Flash-Back. Too much information? Maybe. Did it make your head itch while you read? Mine did while I wrote. The power of suggestion.
There you have it. Have a great day!
Have a great louse free day.