Mrs. Ram's Jams

Tag: lice

• Mrs. Ram’s Jams New Year’s Resolutions

  Posted at 9:06 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 11, 2018

  

  Because my birthday falls on January seventh, my New Year’s resolutions never appear prior to January’s second full week. I’m a firm believer of birthday indulgences. I refuse to let my birthday get in the way of resolutions; therefore, I wait to avoid failure.

  Because intentional failure is stupid.

  But unexpected failure happens all the time for me.

  For example in a moment of lice inspired weakness before Christmas break, I lamented to my principal that I’m an idiot, relinquished all knowledge, and begged her to be my life coach. In the hallway. Loudly. With students and other teachers around.  

  That, my friends, is failing at life.

  As is catching lice at nearly 35. 

  (For my lice debacles, check out these posts: A Little Thing Tale: Merry Licemas and A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Tale: Happy Lice-a-Days)

  And I’m disconcertingly at peace with my spectacular fails.       

  Anyway, here are my resolutions.

  1. 1. Read less. Write more. Instead of inhaling books at an alarming rate, I’m stepping back a notch. I’ll be just fine if I read 60 books instead of 119, allowing me more writing time. I’ve posted weekly since starting the blog, but often I’m scrounging around at the last minute trying to post something before my weekly Saturday self-imposed cutoff (because I’m caught up in a book). Writing is greater than reading in 2018.  
     2. Break the bad habit of spacing twice after a period. WHO KNEW THAT THIS IS NO LONGER A THING, AND HOW COME NO ONE HAS ALERTED THE MASSES??? Or were the masses alerted, and I missed it? Again, another life fail.  
     3. Do yoga everyday (barring contracting bubonic plague, botulism, or whatever more plausible virus is contaminating my middle school). I’ve done yoga everyday since November 13–that’s 60 days in a row! Might as well see if I can keep it up. I can already see the difference, and my back has NEVER felt better. My muscle inflammation is essentially nonexistent. On days that I know I can’t handle 30 minutes, I try to do a gentle 15 minute practice. On top of daily practice, I want to learn about yoga’s history, too.
     4. Brush up on my Russian. I was three classes short of graduating with a minor in Russian from the U of I. The department head, who I loved, left after my sophomore year and was replaced with a scary lady. By junior year, I was one of the few non Russian students. Feeling overwhelmed, I said dosvedanya and left the foreign language building’s basement. Fast forward a decade and I’ve forgotten everything I was taught except how to read it. (Okay that’s not true. The first full sentence from the Russian 101 textbook was лифт никогда не работает, which means “The elevator never works.” Why? Why was this the first thing I learned. Do elevators consistently refuse to work in Russia??? Also the Russian word for water is вода, pronounced voda. It’s. Only. One. Letter. Away. From. Vodka. Can I start calling water “wineter”? Do you think I can pull it off? Or is this a Gretchen Weiners-esque fetch pipe dream?) I dilly-dallied over relearning Russian last summer but was unwilling to fully commit. Rosetta Stone’s new best friend will be Mrs. Ram Jam this year. (Again, life fail. I’d like you to meet my future summer time best friend, Rosetta. I bought her for $179. She’s reteaching me Russian, and she’s not a real person.)
     5. Secret Resolution. Sorry! I’m being that girl.  

  Are these difficult resolutions to keep? Heck no! If I read 119 books, started a blog, mommed hard, taught hard, had a septoplasty, and visited four different doctors regularly in 2017, then 2018’s resolutions should be easy peasy lemon squeezy.

  (P.S. teaching a tiny Little Thing how to say easy peasy lemon squeezy was hilarious. I caught it on video circa three years ago. You’re welcome.)  

   

   

   

   

   

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  Posted in books, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, fitness, reading, Uncategorized, writing, yoga | 0 Comments | Tagged books, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, lice, little thing, new year, new year's resolutions, reading, reading goals, writing, yoga

• A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Tale: Happy Lice-a-Days

  Posted at 7:15 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on December 29, 2017

  

  Two nights ago with an olive oil saturated top knot housed beneath a shower cap, I practiced yoga. Not because of some gimmicky yoga rigmarole promising a better workout. Or because I was deep conditioning my hair. But because Little Thing gave me lice.  

  Yes, you heard me.  

  I turn 35 a week from Sunday, and I caught lice.

  How could I not?  Five-year-olds are snuggle monsters. I tried my best to keep her noggin away from my head, but it’s damned near impossible. How do you explain to little things that you can’t snuggle them for fear of cross buggy contamination? You can’t.  

  Since I threw Little Thing under the bus last week to the interwebs, I decided, against my certifiable proven less than stellar judgement, that I should be transparent about my own lice woes. I mean, ten years from now she could Google me, click on the post from last week A Little Thing Tale: Merry Licemas, read until she’s mortified that her mother has loud capped her trials and tribulations for all the world to see, and never speak to me again. Her future teenage self might forgive me more quickly if she realizes I tossed myself into an alligator-infested canal headfirst for her sake too. Maybe.

  I digress. Let’s rewind two weeks.  

  Upon discovering the initial louse in her hair, I developed phantom itches. I Nixed myself the following day. My husband, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law checked me repeatedly. Still, I itched. Until three days ago, they found only dandruff. Then the last time I had Goose (my husband) check, he found six nits. When I washed my hair two days ago, I discovered a louse clinging for dear life on a blonde hair that came loose with the wash. I pinched the damn bug seven or eight times until it stubbornly died.  

  Licemas wasn’t over.

  I cried in the shower.

  I toweled off, dressed, and cried some more.

  I proceeded to gather the laundry, strip the beds, and spray all surfaces with lice repellant, a bottle full of essential oils.

  Passing through the living room, I slipped in the sheen of errant lice repellant that missed its mark and half-splitted on our hardwood floor.

  I cried harder.  

  This is rock bottom, I thought, and it surprisingly smelled of peppermint, lavender, and tea tree oil.  

  I ruminated over the advice dispersed from last week’s post and decided it was time to get a specialist into the house.

  I settled on LiceDoctors because they were the first service to answer. They dispatched a lovely woman to my house that afternoon.  

  Over the course of two and a half hours, she olive oiled, combed, and picked nits from Little Thing’s and my hair. She then cut the olive oil with Dawn soap and told us to rinse.  We followed up by shampooing and blow drying our hair. Subsequently, she performed a dry nit check, finding no nits on either of our heads, and oiled our hair again.

  She left explicit instructions to oil up before bed, comb it in, and sleep with it on for four nights in a row. Each morning, we were to wash it out, blow it dry, and perform a dry check.  After four nights of sleeping in olive oil, we are supposed to repeat this process every fourth night for a month.  

  What have I learned through this whole process?

  • Some super lice and their nits (eggs) inhabit the world. They have grown immune to over the counter and even prescription chemical treatments. We unfortunately caught the super lice.
  • Lice can only survive 24-36 hours away from the human body.
  • Olive oil is super hard to get out of your hair.  
  • Lice are hard to kill. They can breathe for six to eight hours even through attempts to smother them via olive oil or mayo strangulation. Olive oil and mayo do nothing to kill nits.
  • I don’t own enough towels.  
  • Lice can infiltrate your dreams, cause anxiety, and make you sleep deprived.  
  • Nits are not contagious. Only lice are.  
  • Nits grow once laid. At an early stage, nits are so tiny that they can’t be seen nor caught with a comb. That’s why it’s important to check for nits everyday.  
  • Sunny windows are da bomb.  
  • Nits hatch anywhere between 6-10 days after being laid.  
  • Once lice are discovered, it takes three to four weeks to completely eradicate.
  • The internet is full of conflicting information regarding how to get rid of the bad mama jammas.  
  • We’ve spent a Chiquita banana load of money trying to rid the household of them. I paid LiceDoctors $338. I spent $60 on two useless Nix treatments. I coughed up $75 for the prescription strength Sklice. We’ve bought a Robicomb, other nit combs, new brushes, lice repellent, spray bottles, Lice Ice, new hair ties, vinegar and on and on. My low ball estimate of what we’ve actually spent is $700.  
  • A lice infestation is more of a time suck than Candy Crush, Red Ball, and Facebook combined.

  (Citation:  Information was compiled from LiceDoctors, the CDC’s website, and personal observation. Corrections to the data or pointing out flaws in my reasoning are welcome.)

  As of this morning, no lice or nits are visible in my hair nor in Little Thing’s.  

  The house is in various degrees of shambles as is my state of being.

  At least Little Thing remains her happy little self. (Chirping gems like, “What’s 100 plus strawberries?”)

  This Mama Rama Jama needs a massage, SEVERAL stiff drinks, and a good laugh.

  Are the lice-a-days over yet?  

   

   

  Posted in kids, parenting, Uncategorized, writing | 1 Comment | Tagged kids, lice, nits, parenting, writing, yoga

• A Little Thing Tale: Merry Licemas

  Posted at 2:25 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on December 23, 2017

  

  Last Saturday, my oldest niece graduated from college.  She held her graduation party that night, and we hired a sitter to watch Little Thing so we could attend.

  About three hours before the sitter’s arrival, I decided it was time to redo Little Thing’s braid and switch out her old nightgown for a new one. I grabbed her pink brush from the bathroom, plopped on the pink bean bag chair in her room, and told her to sit in front of me on her pink and white diamond patterned rug so I could knock out her hair. (She might be mildly obsessed with pink.)

  After brushing through her thick, brown locks, I separated her hair into thirds with my fingers. I lifted the right section over the middle and felt something scurry onto my hand. 

  I looked at it.

  That can’t be what I think it is, I thought.  

  It looked at me.  

  It. Was. A. Freaking. Louse.

  In my house.  

  In my child’s gorgeous hair.

  Fuck. Me. I thought.

  Then it dawned on me. She had been scratching her head all week. Holy shit. I’d sent my child to kindergarten all week with lice.   

  Little did I know that my dumpster fire of a week was just beginning.  

  I calmly told Little Thing about the buggies in her hair and that we had to run to Walgreens to get special shampoo to get rid of them.  

  She burst into tears. I felt terrible for her. Poor baby.

  “But it’s a stay at home day. You promised we didn’t have to go anywhere today.”

  Apparently, she wasn’t upset about the lice habitat playing house on her scalp.

  “You can go to Walgreens in your nightgown,” I consoled.

  Her tears immediately stopped.

  Upon arrival home from the pharmacy, I set to work with the Nix. I shampooed, cream rinsed, and nit combed her hair.  Her bedding went straight to the washer.  Pillows, bows, and stuffed animals found new homes in garbage bags.  The vacuum cleaner, broom, and mop cleaned like it was springtime.

  I emailed her teacher like a good parent and told her to be on the lookout for other scratchy-headed children.  

  I sent Little Thing to school on Monday.  

  She got sent home. I had no idea that schools have a no nit policy.  The Nix box told me it killed the eggs, so I thought she was kosher.  

  We purchased the 75 dollar prescription strength shampoo and tried it. I followed it up by nit combing again.  She stayed at her granny’s that night and the next day. I nit combed meticulously for two hours on Tuesday night.  

  We sent her to school on Wednesday. Again, she got sent home.  

  We Lice Iced yesterday and today.

  I’ve spent at least two hours everyday nit combing her hair.  We’ve laundered her bedding and cleaned her room daily. Six days after initial observation, I’m still pulling eggs out of her hair.  

  Jeeze.  I want to pull my own hair out.  Shave it off.  Pull a Britney circa 2007.  

  If only it were that easy.

  I had no clue lice, let alone nits, were this complicated, exhausting, and infuriating.  

  All I want for Christmas is for Licemas to be over.

  Despite the torture Little Thing has suffered during Licemas, her resilience and sunny nature have never once dimmed. Through the shampooing, rinsing, sitting, and combing, she has remained a perfect little elf.  

  It’s not because her Elf on the Shelf is watching or because Christmas is three days away.

  It’s because that’s just how she rolls.

  And that’s the best Christmas gift ever, even if the lice do hang around for the holiday.

  (But seriously Licemas, go fumigate yourself.)  

   

  Posted in kids, parenting, Uncategorized, writing | 1 Comment | Tagged kids, lice, parenting, writing

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