What Did You Do Yesterday? (June)

I went to a professional delouser

7am: We had to get cracking on the day. We had a lot to do. Though it was a Tuesday and a school day, we weren’t going to school. We had a 9am appointment in a de-licing clinic and I had sheets to hot-wash, hairbrushes, teddies and pillows to freeze and one curly-headed kid’s hair to wash, condition and brush (in order to allow a stranger to get a fine toothed comb through it).

Ever since a notice came home from the school two weeks ago, that there were lice in the classroom, I’ve been paranoid that we have them and watching the 4 year old scratch her head the whole walk home the day before, I had to consider the possibility that it was more than just paranoia. I increased the effort I’d been putting into checking their hair from ‘scant’ to ‘thorough’ and went nearly cross-eyed checking their hair the night before. After an hour of fine tooth combing and even more time taking photos of what showed up on the comb, zooming in, putting it into Google Lens, sending it to David saying “Do you think this is one?”, I gave up and made an appointment with the professionals. This is New York City baby, there is nothing you cannot outsource. Within minutes I had an appointment the following morning, for a professional checker, a 15 minute walk away.

My friend who had been through this process before told me I should plan to settle in for the day. It takes ages. She told me to pack ipads, chargers and snacks. WHAT?! I had just spent 7 hours flight time with the kids this past weekend. And we had survived (nay, thrived) but hours spent passing the time in an 8th Avenue lice removal clinic? I wasn’t sure we had it in us.

Truly, there is nothing I won't outsource. In Dublin, I would see neighbours on our street at the weekend, hoovering and washing their cars and I felt like going up to them, tapping them on the shoulder and saying “Do you not know there’s a fella down the road will do that for you for twenty quid?”. For our wedding, I ordered pre-made paper cones with our initials on them, filled with confetti for the guests to throw over us and when my friend got married a few months later and invited the bridesmaids round for a craft night to make the same confetti cones for a miniscule fraction of the price I’d paid, I thought to myself “Aren't you some schmuck? Spending €€€s when you could've just done it yourself?”. Then I finished making just one cone, remembered who I am and thought “Oh my God, could you be BOTHERED?”. The only other time (until now) that I thought I may have taken the outsourcing too far, was as I lay on a StretchLab slab, having my body physically moved into stretches by someone else - stretches I very easily could have done myself…if I could have been (and this is the key bit again) bothered.

8:30am: Seán called by the apartment and I told him we were going to get checked for head lice. I wasn’t sure if we had them, I said, but that I knew in my heart of hearts that we did. He pointed out I was scratching my head while I said that and I’d already noticed I was. It’s so itchy! That’s why we’re going!

9:00am: I told the kids it was a salon for checking if we had bugs in our hair. They’ve each been to a salon only once and based on that experience they asked me “Will there be cookies? Will we get glitter in our hair? And a ribbon?” No. No, it’s not that type of salon. The door was discreetly marked with a sign of a cartoon louse. (Maybe it wasn’t that discreet actually.) We buzzed ourselves in, got into the old fashioned lift and came out on the 6th floor. “I don't like this place”, both kids kept whispering to me before we’d even got in.

It struck me that they’ve never been somewhere even slightly rundown. The place was fine, just old. It reminded me of my primary school, known as “the old school” (built in 1924) or an orthodontist I used to go to as a child, whose surgery was on the first floor of a Georgian house on North Frederick Street. I wouldn't say the vibes were off here, but the vibes weren’t cookies and glitter and ribbons either. Actually, the vibes were a bit off. The “clinic” resembled a regular kitchen so much, that as I looked around, I wondered whether the woman checking our heads under a magnifying glass and a big lamp, lived there. The woman in question barely spoke and she wore a beanie hat that covered her entire head. It took me way too long to realise that the hat was to prevent her getting lice and once I realised, I looked round the room and could suddenly imagine lice everywhere.

Our visit was short, because turns out my heart of hearts and AI don’t know shit: none of us had lice, only “dry scalps” and by 10am we were free to go to school! Which we went to via CVS to pick up bobbins and clips, to put some shape on our hair (our own bobbins and clips, of course, sitting in the freezer at home). I sent the teachers an email to say great news we don't have lice, see you at 10:15.

10:30: I called by the apartment, dumped the buggy and told Seán I was heading out to an appointment and did he fancy coffee after? It was lashing rain and I got an email to say my 12pm yoga class in Central Park had been cancelled. I’d no intention of going in that rain but still got a little thrill thinking how they were the ones to cancel, not me.

11:15 I went for a bikini wax then spent my newly free hour not doing yoga, in the lobby of the Arthouse Hotel on 77th street checking my emails and doing some life admin. It’s an annoying phrase but it’s a real thing and takes real time. I had a coffee and a cinnamon rugelach in the lobby cafe which used to be Patis Bakery but is now Le Lis Kosher Cafe.

12:45 - I met Seán for lunch outside Miriam and even though it was his suggestion, once he was outside, he had a sudden, and very definite, change of heart so we walked instead towards a Cuban-Chinese restaurant he knew on 72nd. We arrived to a notice on the door saying it had been closed “by order of the Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene”. I pipe up that I know another Cuban-Chinese restaurant! Nora Ephron said it was the best Cuban-Chinese restaurant in the world and it is right across the street! We cross 72nd street for La Caridad, take a booth at the back and order ground beef, rice and beans and sesame chicken. Mine was the sesame chicken and was delicious. The other one looked terrible and just seeing it, reminded me how bad the food was in Cuba - something I think I’d been blocking out the past 14 years since I’d been there, leaving room in my memory only for colourful cars, mojitos and how starved the people in the countryside looked. But Seán said it was good and Nora Ephron said it's the best Cuban-Chinese restaurant in the world.

We spent lunch discussing each and every other member of our family and at 2:15, headed for the school.

3pm: We’re all home and the kids are up to 90 as they always are when Uncle Seán is around to rile them up. I gave them a snack of cheese, crackers and apple sauce and turned on the TV to sedate them. They watched an episode of Fright Krewe, which I’d made them watch in advance of going to New Orleans last weekend but now they particularly love it because they recognise the backdrop locations (“THEY’RE IN THE SWAMP!!! MOOOOM!!! THEY’RE IN THE SWAMP!!!”). I take the teddies out of the freezer.

This guy was in solitary confinement in the shower because he was too big for the freezer or the oven.

4:30pm: We leave for swimming and I read my book (‘Housemates’ by

Emma Copley Eisenberg

) and the 4 year old watches YouTube on my phone while the 5 year old learns the breaststroke.

5:30pm: I tidy up the kitchen and make dinner. We video call David who is in Ireland and still at his desk even though it is after 11pm there. After dinner, the four of us play charades and we video call David in (who is by now in the taxi home) for a few rounds. He reminds the girls how they have to be extra good while he is away, especially at bed time. (I’d told him what holy terrors they were the night before, right up until 10pm. It was desperate. I nearly unleashed “Sleepy sleepy time” on them):

How a baby sleep consultant saved my sanity and my marriage

7pm: I started the bedtime routine extra early even though it is so bright out. We get their clothes ready for the Field Day (Sports Day) tomorrow. Every class has to wear a different colour but both of their classes are blue and I bought them matching blue ‘I heart NY’ t-shirts for the occasion. I tell them they can watch one episode of Bluey before story time and they pick the “Grandad” episode. I don't know if it was David’s pep talk, the early morning lice checks or the hour’s swim lesson but they are both sound asleep by 8:15.

8:15: I lit a candle, filled a bowl of popcorn, cracked open a can of Diet Coke and wrote at the kitchen table until I went to bed (11:15)

Addendum: I’ve just googled to see if there are lice clinics in Ireland and there are loads including one called (this is brilliant): The Nit Cracker. ‘Everyone’s a Fruit & Nit Case’ would have been a better headline for this post.