WARNING: The surgeon general has determined that reading this posting may cause nausea and severe itchiness to the head and neck.
The irony, of course, is that as I was writing in another posting about how we did not need any special lice shampoos in our home, it turns out that we needed...special lice shampoos in our home. Poor Gigi has been scratching her head more and more until most recently she's actually looked a little bit like an electrocuted mad scientist. Well, my friend Sarah is gifted in many ways: funny, smart, athletic, compassionate, and -- it turns out -- a nit-spotter par excellence. What I repeatedly missed looking through Gigi's head ("no, you're fine...it's just dry scalp") turns out to be lice. And, now that all our children have been snuggling together for several nights, that means of course that they all have lice. And, so do Sarah and I. Fun! Anthony with his short hair is safe and clean and, miraculously, Cecily is also clean, despite the fact that she's a major bedtime-snuggling, pillow-sharing, book-reading mom for the infested girls.
Now, I realize you are probably pitying us and thinking, "What an awful thing to have while on vacation!" But the truth of it is, it's rather enjoyable to be sitting poolside, chatting and picking through each other's hair. We give out salted caramels for each girl during their nit checks, something that happens daily after the shampoos (theoretically) kill all the live lice. For the women, the reward is really just sitting around on a lounge chair picking through each other's hair. We chat and laugh. It feels primitive, but also communal and nurturing, like a bunch of cavewomen -- or baboons. I don't think I've had somebody play with my hair this much since I was a middle-schooler in summer camp. Given the beautiful poolside setting at our villa, it's as good as a massage or a visit to a spa.
And now, for the nausea-inducing part of our day. Since I love French cheese, I decide at the market this morning that we must try Banon, a local goat cheese that comes wrapped in chestnut leaves. When I open the wrapper to serve it, I scream and jump back, which of course brings everybody running -- cheese not normally being quite as scary as all that. It turns out there are maggots on this particular round. Since we are filled with a sense of adventure, and the bar for our gross-out levels is already set quite high, we decide to try it anyway. Well, most of us.
I have to say, that I am inordinately proud of all the children for trying a piece (maggots scraped away, of course). The funniest one to me is that 8-year old Bella who loves chicken, mustard, and pie crust, refuses to try a luncheon pastry made of chicken chunks and a little mustard wrapped in pie crust. Yet she tries the maggot cheese and also the muscles we have at a restaurant one day. So...points for bravery but not logic? Sarah, on the other hand, will have nothing to do with the maggot cheese, as you can clearly tell from her expression below. She thus proves that she is either far saner than the rest of us, or feels less need to earn bragging rights. I, on the other hand, am like a twelve-year old with the need to show off and will therefore eat almost anything -- once -- just for the bragging rights, despite the fact that I am squeamish and look like I am about to vomit: silkworms and snakes in Vietnam, stinky tofu in Taiwan, whale blubber in Japan, though I did draw the line at the balut in the Philippines.
Can you find the maggot in the photo above? Does this make you think, "mmmm...delicious cheese?" If so, please come visit! I'll try to make sure there's no lice, however, before you get here. But I can't promise anything.
The irony, of course, is that as I was writing in another posting about how we did not need any special lice shampoos in our home, it turns out that we needed...special lice shampoos in our home. Poor Gigi has been scratching her head more and more until most recently she's actually looked a little bit like an electrocuted mad scientist. Well, my friend Sarah is gifted in many ways: funny, smart, athletic, compassionate, and -- it turns out -- a nit-spotter par excellence. What I repeatedly missed looking through Gigi's head ("no, you're fine...it's just dry scalp") turns out to be lice. And, now that all our children have been snuggling together for several nights, that means of course that they all have lice. And, so do Sarah and I. Fun! Anthony with his short hair is safe and clean and, miraculously, Cecily is also clean, despite the fact that she's a major bedtime-snuggling, pillow-sharing, book-reading mom for the infested girls.
Now, I realize you are probably pitying us and thinking, "What an awful thing to have while on vacation!" But the truth of it is, it's rather enjoyable to be sitting poolside, chatting and picking through each other's hair. We give out salted caramels for each girl during their nit checks, something that happens daily after the shampoos (theoretically) kill all the live lice. For the women, the reward is really just sitting around on a lounge chair picking through each other's hair. We chat and laugh. It feels primitive, but also communal and nurturing, like a bunch of cavewomen -- or baboons. I don't think I've had somebody play with my hair this much since I was a middle-schooler in summer camp. Given the beautiful poolside setting at our villa, it's as good as a massage or a visit to a spa.
And now, for the nausea-inducing part of our day. Since I love French cheese, I decide at the market this morning that we must try Banon, a local goat cheese that comes wrapped in chestnut leaves. When I open the wrapper to serve it, I scream and jump back, which of course brings everybody running -- cheese not normally being quite as scary as all that. It turns out there are maggots on this particular round. Since we are filled with a sense of adventure, and the bar for our gross-out levels is already set quite high, we decide to try it anyway. Well, most of us.
I have to say, that I am inordinately proud of all the children for trying a piece (maggots scraped away, of course). The funniest one to me is that 8-year old Bella who loves chicken, mustard, and pie crust, refuses to try a luncheon pastry made of chicken chunks and a little mustard wrapped in pie crust. Yet she tries the maggot cheese and also the muscles we have at a restaurant one day. So...points for bravery but not logic? Sarah, on the other hand, will have nothing to do with the maggot cheese, as you can clearly tell from her expression below. She thus proves that she is either far saner than the rest of us, or feels less need to earn bragging rights. I, on the other hand, am like a twelve-year old with the need to show off and will therefore eat almost anything -- once -- just for the bragging rights, despite the fact that I am squeamish and look like I am about to vomit: silkworms and snakes in Vietnam, stinky tofu in Taiwan, whale blubber in Japan, though I did draw the line at the balut in the Philippines.
I must admit that not many of us have more than one or two bites of the maggot cheese (which is creamy, just stinky enough, and quite delicious, once you get past the idea of the maggots). And by the time I go to clean it up, it is cloaked in not just maggots but also ants, which brings back all sorts of childhood horrors. (Once as a small child, I found a cheese slice that was left out. Half was still there, the other half was just a plateful of ants. For many years, I honestly believed that ants came from cheese.)
Can you find the maggot in the photo above? Does this make you think, "mmmm...delicious cheese?" If so, please come visit! I'll try to make sure there's no lice, however, before you get here. But I can't promise anything.
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