It's very hard to find a moment to record one's thoughts when the children are rampaging around, chores need to be done and friends should be seen before we leave for our summer hols in England.
Things were busy enough even before last weekend's spanner in the works. (Err, that would be wrench for you Americans)
Last weekend, the kids started scratching. There had been several outbreaks of head lice throughout the school year (which is what happens when you let the white people in, but that's a story for another day) and we were very relieved to have escaped the trend.
Or so we thought.
The scratching increased and so, at an event in the park with a bunch of other parents from school, I asked my friend to check their heads. I'd been looking, but it's one of those cases that if you don't know what you're looking for, you really don't know when you've found it.
Long story short - lice it was.
I immediately went to the nearest chemist (err, drug store. I am practising my English for Blighty next week) and bought 3 boxes of Rid and texted the kids father to meet us at our house.
When he finally showed up, he went into a google frenzy and announced that the product was poison. Well, poisonous beyond the obviously desired poisonous-to-lice-ness. When you read that a product is designed to be used only twice in a lifetime, you kinda know that you don't want it on your kids head.
Alternate options were explored and, to cut another long story short, we spent 4 hours and $330 at "The Lice Lady" in Carroll Gardens having the buggers combed out.
I'd love to say that that was the end of the matter, but I've had to comb their hair out myself every other day since and have to continue to do so until two weeks have passed. Fun it is not.
Now my children, as you can see from this:
have the most glorious heads of hair. We refer to them as having afros, but in fact they don't at all. In size and, to an extent, shape, they do, but that's where the comparison ends completely. They don't have an inch of kink in their hair and in fact the smaller kid has many straight strands on his beautiful head. What they have is very thick, very curly, very soft, hair. (A bit more kink, and the lice might have left us alone hence the comment at the outset)
I love their hair. It's like a trademark and the quickest and easiest way for me to tell a fellow parent which kids belong to me. I've said a million times "the ones with the hair" and everyone knows who I am talking about.
Last week, almost everyone that heard of our woes said "you're going to buzz their hair right?"
Nope. Not me.
Yes, combing out that hair has been a bloody nightmare. Yes, it would have been easier to just shave it all off. But so what that it would have been easier? New York is too full of choices made for children that are easier for parents - more about that another day too, since that's not the topic of this particular little rant.
Here's the topic: If they had been girls, noone would have thought to make the suggestion that I shave their heads. If they were girls, it would just be assumed that we would deal with it as is - or maybe at the very most have a trim to make life a little simpler.
Because the appearance of girls is important, apparently, and the appearance of boys is not.
Boys should not trouble themselves with the way they look. Girls should not dare to forget it.
Got that? Because it's practically set in stone and perpetuated by even the most "thinking" of people.
And yet you thinkers complain when your grown men can't be bothered to put on a decent outfit to go out for dinner. Or, when they go overboard in adulthood at the chance to actually consider their appearance, you complain that they are metrosexuals and won't get out the bathroom.
You complain that your girlfriends won't climb walls or get themselves dirty.
And you will complain when your girls are hairdressers and my boys are engineers.
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