For all those who have not had children yet, or who are not at the daycare/ school stage, here are a couple of gems that nobody tells you about and which we conveniently forget about from our own childhood.
Lice– Although my contact with these has been thankfully low, the hair checks and the frightening streams of parent emails all serve to develop acute paranoia and sympathetic itchiness.
Consequences: A debate with yourself whether or not you should raidate the creatures away with toxic but effective shampoo, or try the natrual way with lavendar, tea tree oil and I can’t remember what or just paint your kid’s head with vaseline, stick a shower cap on it and in the morning take a chisel to their helmet. And of coure, a lot of laundry for the parent and a few psychological traumas reminiscent of delirium tremens where you see bugs everywhere. Hey! What’s that in your hair? Let me look… Just stay still… Oh my god… It’s…no…sorry, it’s just some dried up milk from your cereal at breakfast.
Pinworms-Now this. This I battle frequently.
Enterobius vermicularis, or commonly known asa pinworms, thread worms or seat worms, are about 1/2 an inch long and live in your child’s anus! Whooeee! Now we are having fun! And how do detect these little critters? Well, you must wait until your child is fast asleep, go get a flashlight or your night vision goggles, creep into their room, pull back the covers, pull down their pyjamas, open their legs and inspect their bums. If you see little white threads wriggling in your child’s anus, well then you know your child is the preferred host for these all night partyers. Or you could inspect their stool in the morning. Or you could stick a piece of scotch tape on the area and see if you caught any of the little guys. Or you could just go by the fact that your child starts itching uncontrollably for about an hour and half right around bedtime. Either way, fun times….
Consequences: De-worming medicine for the whole family and a lot of laundry for the parent. And yes, psychological traumas related to the fact that you just saw worms wriggling inyour child’s bum.
Lina Branter 