Last Friday afternoon, I was told that five kids who share my daughter’s middle-school classroom had been infested with lice.

That night, my daughter was at a sleepover, my husband was on a fishing trip, my son was in bed and I started itching. I was sure I had lice and that my daughter was probably infesting her friend’s house.

It was midnight and I had no one around to look at my head. I have never had lice, nor have my children, so I didn’t really know what to do. Which is why I did what any sane, logical person would; I took my Ambien, poured half a bottle of apple cider vinegar on my head, covered it with a shower cap and a towel, then went to bed. See? Completely sane.

I woke up at 4:00am wondering how I had fallen asleep surrounded by apple cider vinegar stench. Thanks, Ambien! I showered, washed my hair a few times with the hottest water I could stand and dried it with the hottest setting on my dryer, then I changed my sheets.

Keep in mind, I had not seen a bug, a nit, a nothing. I’m proactive like that.

The next morning, I found out that my daughter was fine and I was without the slightest itch, so I declared myself a paranoid, lice-free woman. This whole scene? Is why I take Zoloft.

On Monday, when I was driving my son home after school, he told me that they had checked some kids for lice during the day, but he was upset they hadn’t checked him.

He said, “Mom, I don’t know why they didn’t check me! I wanted them to, but they told me to go back to my classroom!’

I looked at him in the rearview mirror. “That’s okay if they didn’t check you. I’m sure they only checked certain kids for a reason.”

Then I realized that I should have never explained why my bedroom reeked of vinegar on Saturday morning when he said,  “Well, they wouldn’t listen to me…I even told them that you have lice!”

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The little guy climbed onto his grandma’s lap, began to rub her neck and said, “Hey Vo-Vo, Guess what my four favorite things are.”

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To put it mildly, my kids don’t get along. I have a daughter, who is about to turn 13 and a son who is 9 (and a half).

As if being, nearly, a teen isn’t hard enough, my daughter has to deal with a little brother who isn’t a typical little brother. Literally. His special needs make him all the more irritating to her. You would think she would appreciate that he can’t hear well, because it’s like a free ticket to yell.

It doesn’t help that my son is as ornery as the day is long. He will drive my poor daughter to the brink and when I get involved he will say, “I was just doing it to get her in trouble!” Push buttons much? He’s just like his father.

Last night at dinner, we were clearly heading toward a sibling blow-up because every time my daughter spoke, my son had something to add; stuff like, “Oh, please! You are such a teen!”

As her expression grew angry after his incessant comments, he knew he had to back-pedal…or so I thought. I saw him lean toward her and put his hand on her shoulder. I thought, for a second, that he was going to apologize.

Instead, he brushed her hair off of her face and said, “Ali, do you know you love me?”

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One of my favorite things about Christmas morning is opening the gifts that my kids, painstakingly, pick out at their school’s Santa Gift Land. I remember shopping for my own parents when I was a child, usually deciding on anything with a candy-cane stripe; pens, candles, shoestrings…you get the picture.

Though my daughter is about to turn 13 and is, therefore, too mature to shop at Santa Gift Land *place hand on hip* *insert eyeroll*, she does win a blue ribbon for the best item ever purchased off of a folding table in the art room. When she was in one of the lower grades and attended Santa Gift Land, she bought my husband a wolf-clock.

I’m not sure where we have it stored, but it looked sort of like this:

A fine clock specimen if you love a good mini-wolf. Plus, nothing says, “What time is it?” like an animal’s ribcage.

I don’t know why there aren’t many good choices for dads at Santa Gift Land, but this was about as good as it got. Until this year.

Last week, after shopping at school, my son came home with a coffee mug for his dad. Perfect! My husband likes coffee, he needs to drink it out of a mug and there wasn’t a wolf on it! I was actually pretty excited for him to open this gift on Christmas morning. It would be such a pleasant surprise!

The other night, my two fellas were sitting together on the couch when my nine year old suddenly asked, “Hey, Dad. What do you want for Christmas?”

My husband said, “Oh, I don’t know. I need some socks and a new pillow.”

My son nodded. “Do you want anything else?”

“Well, you know I love the Dallas Cowboys. I’d like a new Cowboys shirt.”

Then my son looked up at his dad and said, “Oh, those are good ideas. But, how do you feel about coffee mugs?”

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