When the post-it note appeared on the fridge with the words ‘Book V Clinic’ scrawled across it, I knew my baby making days were all but over.

It appeared my husband knew me better than I knew myself and even though at that point in time (ie. Three months pregnant with baby number three), I had no intention of having a number four, he knew all it would take was a mere sighting of a cute baby and I’d be back on the newborn express.

See, babies are my crack. One whiff, one sighting, one hold and I am hooked and need a more personal fix. My husband was onto me, hence the post-it note.

He had also done some logical thinking, damn him. Going from a family of five to a family of six would mean more than adding a new name to the Medicare Card. It would require a seven-seater car. It would mean a four bedroom home (at the very least). It would also mean that we would probably not retire until we were dead (although to be honest, we are fairly prepared for that scenario anyway).

Are these reasons, which essentially are material based, valid enough to veto child number four, five or even six? If you had caught me off guard in the post baby haze, three years down the track when the memories of vaginal tearing and sleep deprivation were conveniently forgotten, I’d have said, no, not a good enough reason. In the cold light of day however, knee deep in shitty nappies and having cleaned up my body weight in vomit, I’d probably quite happily snip the offending sperm carrying tube myself. So yes, I guess I’m saying three is the magic number for us.

It almost feels like three is the new two. Most of all my friends have three children and, like us, they went back for more punishment bliss at that comfortable, fuss free time of their lives when their other children were basically self-sufficient. And I can’t even say we had our third child because we wanted a child of a particular sex. We already had a pigeon pair and they were/are good kids. And then, perhaps just to teach us a lesson to mess with fate, we had the now Mr Four, the hurricane on two legs.

This boy came out born ready. He took no more than two hours to make his way out, nine pounds and I didn’t even require a single stitch. This either means I was totally ‘one’ with my breathing during labour or, probably closer to the truth, I was just a total loose goose. I digress, the fact is, this kid was jumping out of trees and breaking his wrists before he could tell me ‘No’. And he tells me ‘No’ A LOT.

Do I still hanker for another addition? Honestly no. I love that my friends are having babies and I am getting to enjoy them in an ‘Aunty Bern’ capacity. ie. I’m getting to give all the hugs, kisses and long holds and then sleep for eight hours. Sometimes nine.

In hindsight, that 20 minute trip to the clinic where the doctor pulled out his glorified soldering iron and burnt the pathways to fatherhood to render my husband infertile was both sad, yet necessary.

Where did you draw the line? Have you?

*Note – I had to google ‘vasectomy’ to find a picture for this post. What I have seen cannot be unseen.

I remember being given a copy of ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’ when I was first pregnant. On the front cover, sat a serene woman in sensible shoes, rocking away in her wooden rocking chair with a fairly sceptical look on her face. Clearly she’d already read what was going on inside, ie. the very vanilla, straight laced version of what was actually going to happen when she got pregnant, had a child and then raised said child (followed up in the aptly titled ‘What To Expect In Your First Year’ and ‘What To Expect In The Toddler Years’). I can save you forty bucks. Just expect your life to change. Massively.

But here are a few more expectations I personally have found to be true:

Expect labour to hurt – a lot

Pinch that soft fleshy bit under your arm. Hard. Harder. Feel that? Hurt? That doesn’t even come close to the absolute agony that is labour. In fact, go outside, put your foot under a 4WD tyre and ask someone will very few scruples to reverse over it a couple of times. Painful? Nope, still not even close. Shit out a watermelon. Yeah, that comes kinda close.

Expect to never sleep in. Ever again

Look, just think of those last uncomfortable months of sleeping whilst pregnant as training. Training for the Tired Olympics. Believe me, your training will be so intensive you’ll be almost a dead cert for the gold medal. Expect to never sleep in past 6am ever again. Oh, wait, I take that back, *just* when your body is used to waking up at that time and can no longer physically break the 7am barrier, your child will start to sleep in. Until midday. This will enrage you.

Expect to be embarrassed in public

“Mum, why is there a snake coming out of your bottom?” I’ll set the scene. Public toilet at some brightly lit Megaplex in the burbs. Me, in sudden need of a toilet and believe me, if it could wait until I was in my own home, it would have. The 3-year-old, standing in front of me while I try to efficiently do as nature intends. He, when not trying to escape under the door, is peering into the toilet and in his best big boy voice, alerting my stable mates that I am doing a massive shit.

Expect to never see the bottom of your laundry hamper. Ever again

You know, if someone was smart, they’d make a laundry hamper with a big picture of your celebrity free pass at the bottom. Give you some incentive to make your way down there. Mine would be Jason Bateman or Mark Ruffalo. If someone was doubly smart, they would make it your husband’s Free Pass. Therefore I would find Natalie Portman at the bottom of ours.

Expect to feel guilt at code red levels

Mother’s guilt really needs its own postcode. Are we working too much, feeding them too little, not enough? Allowing them too much screen time? Are they eating enough dirt? Too much? It’s guilt central and we are our own harshest critics.

Expect to become the master of empty threats

You will need to find your currency when it comes to kids and threats. ‘Stop it or you go to your room’ rarely cuts it. ‘So freaking what, all my toys are in my room, do better Mum.’ So you have to find what they love the most and threaten to take it away from them. More often than not, these are empty threats. I mean you want to go to Dreamworld just as much as they do, but you can’t let them know that.

Expect to lose your train of thought. Which has just happened to me right now.

Father’s Day 2011

Bartrand Hubbard once said: “I’ve had a hard life, but my hardships are nothing against the hardships that my father went through in order to get me to where I started.”

My dad is in his mid 80s now. His body is telling him it’s nearly time, but his mind remains as sharp as the day. He grew up in a small rural community, riding a horse 10 miles to school every day.

A couple of years ago, I took my youngest son on a journey, to visit and spend time with his granddad. I wanted him to know about those early days. He remarked that my son was a walking magnet, with all the steel in his body, and that he had more ink on him than in the classroom he learned in (He has a couple of tattoos and at the time, two or three piercings).

So…I wanted him to open up to my son. I asked him about those informative years. “Hard years” he said and started to open up. I learned as much as my son that day. You see, I thought I knew my old man. Turns out I only knew what he decided I should know.

I never knew about the beatings he regularly got from his ‘old man’ – my grandfather. I did know about his brother chopping off his toe, but not about being chained to the chopping block because of it. I had always wondered about the truth of this, but when he started reminiscing with my son, I began to believe in the reality of life during the depression and those years that shaped my dad into the man he became.

He would over the years say to me on more than one occasion: “Your grandfather was a hard bastard – but a fair one!”

Somehow, that cliche ‘Like father. Like son’ rings in my mind. My old man was hard. But fair! I never really saw him show true affection to me or my five brothers all that often but then, I was not really around most of their growing years.

He did love us unconditionally, protected us and kept us safe. Many times he covered my arse – I just did not know it! Not then at least.

I do now, but it was to be many years later that I learned the truth. We never came to blows, but there were many harsh words. He was, after all just trying to instill the values he had been taught by his father, into me. I really didn’t want to listen. At 16 I knew it all and it was the dawning of ‘The Age of Aquarius’ and I had an adventure to begin.

Some years later, when he got the call that no father wants to hear: “Your son has had a very serious accident and may not make it through the night. You best get here quick” he just downed tools and come hell or high water was going to be at my bedside. No questions asked.

He was there and remained until I was out of immediate danger. He cared not for his business or any other matter, apart from getting to the hospital to be at the side of his eldest son.

As we drove that August morning some 2 years ago, my own son began to learn more and more about this kind, loving and compassionate man – my father, his granddad.

We stopped at a little country cafe for lunch and all my old man wanted was a cold beer and a plate of seafood chowder.

I have never seen that smile since. He was in old man’s heaven.

We got back into the car and he proceeded to ramble on about his lunch for what seemed hours, issuing directions with military precision on how to get to the family homestead. After an hour, my son and I looked at each other bewildered, as we were so certain we were just plain lost!!

Next thing, we are right outside the gate to the family farm. He had let us to this gate with pin point accuracy.

It was about this time that he demanded we stop for lunch because he had not eaten since breakfast and he was hungry.

My son told him he had lunch an hour ago and couldn’t understand why he was getting so agitated.

My dad now lives in a very comfortable retirement home. He has all his wants and needs met and is surrounded by loving family.

I hope the good lord allows me one more visit.

I for one, will be calling my old man this Father’s Day, to tell him how much I love him.

Yes…he did teach me well. I hope through him, I have taught my boys well.

I didn’t pick up my best friend’s call last Thursday, even though she rang twice in the space of 10 minutes. This is nothing new. She does it to me, I do it to her, figuring, as per usual, it would just be something trivial. It’s pretty standard that we both call each other at inopportune times for nothing in particular. I was at work. I was busy and I didn’t bother listening to the message she left me straight away. In fact, I only listened to her message later that night to get to another one I thought would be important. It wasn’t, but hers couldn’t have been more so.

Her thirteen-month-old daughter was at the Mater Children’s hospital having micro surgery on her teeny tiny thumb in an attempt to save it. It had been basically severed off when she attempted to pick up a piece of shattered glass.

But when I did eventually listen to the message, Jodi, my friend, still didn’t actually tell me what had happened. The message was fast and it was clear that she was upset and anxious. She was in shock but in auto-pilot mode which is, from my experience, the brace position we all take as parents when something truly awful happens to our children. No, see, the silly thing was, the message was an apology to me. Huh?

It was hard to interpret her words at times, but basically she was trying to stress that she didn’t think she had been around enough when my children were in hospital. She was leaving this message, pacing the hospital corridor while her husband cradled her daughter. I knew that feeling and I certainly didn’t want her feeling any extra irrational guilt for being a shit friend. Because she wasn’t. To the contrary, I always felt well supported and even more importantly, like I could count on my close friends and family when something spectacularly awful had gone down. I should be the one apologising.

And you know, had Jodi come around the corner 5 seconds earlier, gorgeous little Georgia would know for sure that she’d be able to make the A-OK signal with her hand when she grows up. But she didn’t. And that’s life.

Our own examples:

Maddison, aged 2: got her foot broken by a kid at Sizzler. This kid got up on the railing, jumped down and drove his knee down into her foot WWF style. Two broken bones and 6 weeks in a cast.

Sam, aged 1.5: RSV – in for three nights.

Sam, aged 2: intussusception (when the bowel telescopes back in on itself) Scary as shit to watch. Scarier when they find it hard to diagnose.

Sam, aged 2.5: hernia operation. In for a week.

Sam, aged 3: severe influenza A. Lumbar puncture. Weeks in hospital.

Jack, aged 3: fell from his father’s shoulders and broke both his wrists and busted his face.

Sam, aged 7: fell off the monkey bars, totally broke and disconnected his upper and low arms. Surgery to insert wires. Wires got infected (100:1 odds) and had to spend another week in hospital on heavy duty antibiotics. Further surgery to remove wires.

So that’s it. I think. There may have been other nights we rushed them to the ER that don’t stand out. Oh, once we had Jack taken to the hospital in the Ambulance because he couldn’t breathe. Equally tops.

And I guess it all comes down to the fact that to get through life unscathed and to never see the inside of a hospital for anyone is rare. To blame ourselves for not identifying certain symptoms in time, or to beat ourselves up for not avoiding the day to day accidents is just useless. Phil still finds it hard to accept that Jack fell from his shoulders on his watch. And I’m pretty sure he’s never forgiven himself no matter how much I try and make him see otherwise.

But Jodi, you have done a wonderful job of not only being my friend, but also being there when I have needed you. You are an outstanding mother and Jodi, be kind to yourself, it’s all going to be okay. And I promise to pick up every call in the future. x

Jodi, myself and Bonnie. Best friends a gal could have (and you too Bron).

All I really wanted was a nice Sunday out.

Bit of kicking a ball around a park followed by a nice lunch. Preferably in a restaurant where we could fob the kids off to a supervised play area and then sit quietly in the beautiful sunshine, having a few quiet Sunday beverages watching the world go by. Was. Never. Going. To. Happen.

See Jack the 4-year-old, received some second hand football boots from our friends just over two weeks ago. For two solid weeks, those shoes have only left his feet when it was time to sleep. And even then, he was reluctant to part with them. He has stood on my exposed fingers and toes with the studs no less than five times. So many expletives. So, so many expletives. So with that we figured we should take him and his boots down the local oval and use them for what they were intended, kicking a football.

So promising

At around 11am, we all got ready to leave the house and head out. Oh wait, the receptacle of bad attitude, aka Maddison the 11-year-old, was still in bed asleep. Sleeping off a big night of doing fuck all it seemed. I shotgunned not to be the one to wake her and retreated to the car and waited for her to appear. She appeared at my window five minutes later, dressed for what I imagined you would wear to the apocalypse. Our conversation went like this:

HER: Can’t I stay here?

ME: No.

HER: Why not?! I don’t want to go to the stupid football ground.

ME: Because.

HER: We always do what they want to do, never what *I* want to do.

ME: Well what do you want to do?

HER: I don’t know. Nothing.

ME: Get in the car.

We turned up to the football ground and exploded out of the car as only a family of 5 jam-packed into a ridiculously small car can, and made our way over to the oval.

This is when Maddison thought it would be a top idea to position herself right under the goalposts. Right where Jack was making it his mission to kick the ball over said goalposts. We told her to move, she chose to ignore us. Two balls to the head later, she still refused to move but was sobbing silently.

Sam was wandering around constantly returning to lament on the litter situation, often referring to it as a “wasteland” and surely a sign of the “end of days”.

As for Jack, the reason we were even down at this godforsaken oval? Well he’d lost his shit almost immediately. We were either kicking it too high, too low, too fast, too slow. There was no pleasing him. He did manage to kick it over the goalposts twice. 2 times out of about 54 attempts meant 52 meltdowns.

By the time he’d got himself wedged in the tree he had climbed in a fit of rage, we called time on the Morley football adventure. Time to activate part B – relaxing lunch. Oh, but not before Jack coat-hangered himself on the rope he failed to see on the oval’s perimeter.

I’ll admit at this point I was ready to throw in the towel, go home and commence drinking. Screw a nice steak; we had cheese tubes in the cupboard and all manner of alcoholic selections atop the fridge. But we soldiered on, determined we would have a nice day out. Damn it.

For some unknown reason we decided to try somewhere we’d heard about yet never actually been. It was in a dodgy area, yet people were raving and we were a family wearing football shoes and thongs, we were hardly in a position to judge.

11-year-old Maddie was still moaning over god knows what, peeping up from her angsty Vampire book every so often to shoot me daggers. The two boys had settled in nicely to a game of ‘Catch the Cop’ which I assume is reverse Cops and Robbers in the playground I had surreptitiously swept for used needles and Phil and I sat down in the sunshine as planned.

Then we were asked to leave. Well leave the sunshine. Apparently only people smoking could sit in the sweet area where you could actually keep an eye on your children. As we attempted to move ourselves, Phil accidently knocked his beer and in turn, gave Jack a bath in Peroni. Cue the screaming. Not because he was soaked in beer, but because now he’d have to get “naked!”

We settled into more appropriate seats and I started reading the Sunday paper. As talk turned to the Ekka (Brisbane’s Royal show), Phil declared we were going to go this year. News to me as a) he usually fucking hates the Ekka and b) I don’t even have a b. I was thrown. Immediately the kids went nuts scouring the show bag guide. Maddie decided Sam would be getting the Mega Moron bag which of course Sam took umbrage at and the name calling commenced. Jack fell from his chair after being repeatedly asked to sit still and the other two had upped the ante and started a slapping war.

I was mopping up beer, yell whispering death threats under my breath and mechanically chewing what was really good steak. I looked at Phil, he at me and I shook my head. I turned serenely to my three animals children and quietly told them that there would be no more Sunday Lunches and there would definitely not be a trip to the Ekka. I also may have said they were a bunch of ingrates. At this point all three started to cry. Sunday bloody Sunday.

“Stop right there Jack. You need to finish your Pepsi Max before you hop into bed. And you are certainly NOT taking those Tim Tams in there with you either!” Those actual words came out of my mouth on a Monday night at 8:30pm. The one just gone actually. Rock bottom solo parenting, I believe I have just found your definition.

My only excuse, and it’s not even a valid one, is that I’ve been solo parenting for a week or so due to my husband working interstate. Now, I myself come from a single parent family, you would think I would be the first to appreciate what’s involved here, but I just had no. Freaking. Idea. Granted my mother didn’t work and didn’t have to fight the logistics of getting three children to three separate learning institutions every morning and then retrieve them each evening, with the very real threat of shitty traffic and the setting sun putting her in the precarious position of being a no show as the lights were being turned off, but she certainly knew what it was to have no one to fall back upon.

So yes, back to Monday night. I managed to collect all three before they turned the lights off at their respective care and as I barrelled through the hideous traffic, my mind wandered to the mince sitting in the fridge and just knew my kids would be gnawing through my tibia if they had to wait for spaghetti that night. I made an executive decision: shite night was getting a new timeslot – Mondays. KFC loomed on the horizon.

And here’s a stark admission, my husband does a shitload around the house. This is starting to become startlingly evident the longer the week goes on. Right now, I can honestly say that as I sit here and type this in my lounge room, it looks as if someone has removed the roof while I’ve been at work today and shat directly in the middle of my house. And even though I tidied up, it is becoming increasingly apparent, he just has a natural talent to do this better than me. There are stray jumpers dropped where they were removed, upended empty plastic cups left to languish on the coffee table, Wii games strewn in front of the TV. I’m guessing these are usually taken care of by him before I return home from work in the evening. Pretty sure he would have found and turfed this morning’s porridge before Jack had the chance to polish off the 12-hour old remains as well.

Another thing he must be anal…no, fastidious about is returning the DVDs to the Video store on time. Because right now, the Mean Girls 2 DVD cover is sitting on the dining table sans disc. We rented this last Friday night. It is now four days overdue and the disc is AWOL. This is something my husband revels in, finding missing shit. He makes it his mission and is ALWAYS successful. Me, well I have no god damn idea where it is. I have torn this place apart and it is still MIA. I fear we about to topple our $98 late fee record of Christmas 2009.

The hardest thing is that there is no one to fob to. I’m it. I’m the responsible adult in this family. The go-to person. And as much as I guess you’d say I’m the stronger personality in our relationship, I’m beginning to realise, he’s the stronger person. He’s just a quiet achiever.

I do notice a difference in the washing and the food consumption however. That shit is totally under control. As he changes THREE times a day and eats enough food to feed three armies, there is a definite shift in those areas.

And mine is only a temporary position. I have massive respect for any parent out there doing the solo parenting thing full-time. Both time wise and financially, it would kick your arse. I know I joke, but I truly do respect you and your efforts.

I will be most happy to see his smiling, exhausted face this Thursday. And then I’ll kiss him goodbye Friday morning and hand over the reins as we tag team and I fly out to Melbourne for three days. And it will be his turn to ride solo. He will find that DVD, that much I can be sure of.

So this isn’t original.  In fact I swiped it off Jodie at Mummy-Mayhem who I think may have in turn, borrowed it from another great blogger.  It’s an interview with my children.  Maddie 10, Sam 8 and Jack 3.

Can I urge you to do the same.  Even if you don’t write or blog.  Ask the questions, write them down and update them when you remember. Then give them to your children when they grow up.

I wish I had an insight into my own ten year old mind.  Although it probably would have been all about my anguish over my shameful decision to cut my hair like a boy and desperate desire to read Dolly magazine. 

1. What do you want to do when you grow up?

10yo: A teacher.  (Good choice, heaps of holidays and job security)
8yo:  A Train Driver.  (Nice, just be weary of that bastard fat controller)
3yo: A grownup.  (Probably the longest shot of all. Who want’s to be a grownup when you actually have to be?)

2. How old are you?

10yo: Ten turning eleven (most important to clarify at this age)
8yo: 8
3yo: 3
3. How old am I? 

10yo: 35 (Correct)
8yo: 10 (Sucking up. I like it)
3yo:  4 (Going too far, I can spot a teachers pet a mile away)
4. How old is Dad?

10yo: 38 (Also true.)
8yo: 81 (Bwahahhaha)
3yo: 4 (At least he’s not my sugar daddy)
5. What do you like most about school/daycare?

10yo: English (Good girl.  Now just write another Twilight saga and we can retire on the beach)
8yo: Integrated Studies (This could be a made up subject)
3yo: Chocolate.  (Hmmm, that’s the reason he’s off tap when I pick him up)
6. What do you like to do outside?

10yo: Talk to friends (And recreate Bold & the Beautiful Style dramas I believe)
8yo: Play on the playground (I’m guessing this doesn’t include the the time he broke his arm into two separate pieces)
3yo: Playing Tennis/Raking Dirt (I can see why these two would be a close call)
7. What do you like to do inside? 

10yo: Watch TV (True Dat)
8yo: Work (The Nike Sweatshop has nothing on us apparently)
3yo: Hanging out in my room (Stockholm syndrome, he’s often relegated there for being a turd)
8. What is your favourite toy? 

10yo: My DS.
8yo: My Lego
3yo: Batman
9. What is your favourite game?

10yo: Monopoly (Until she starts to lose that is, then it sucks the big one)
8yo: Lego
3yo: Batman
10. Do you have a favourite TV show? 

10yo: Modern Family (Mine too)
8yo: Tom & Jerry (Sam is a T & J freak)
3yo: Batman (Hmm, recurring theme?)
11. Do you have a favourite movie?

10yo: Eclipse (Twilight) 
8yo: Transformers (Because ultimately, Sam Morley would like to be Sam Witwicky)
3yo: Batman (I think he thinks he’s Robin)
12. Do you have a favourite book?

10yo: Eclipse (Pasty vampires & love triangles, perhaps I should start censoring)
8yo: Tornadoes (Infatuated with natural disasters)
3yo: Batman  (Enough with the batman)
13. What’s your favourite colour?

10yo: Purple
8yo: Red
3yo: Green, Black and White (Why not?)

14. What’s your favourite number?

10yo: 100
8yo: 1
3yo: 3 – that’s my birfday Mum. 

15. What’s your favourite food?

10yo: Pasta Bake (Which we NEVER have)
8yo: Apples
3yo: Batman Food

16. What is something that is really good for you?

10yo: Bananas
8yo: A haircut. (Let’s face it, a bloody good one can lift your spirits)
3yo: Not hitting (Yes son, good because you spend less time incarcerated in your room)

17. Do you have a favourite friend?

10yo: Alissa
8yo: Zack
3yo: Georgia (Also can be classified as his girlfriend)
18. What time do you usually go to bed? 

10yo: 9pm (On a slack night, true)
8yo: 9:30pm (Um, maybe in fantasy land)
3yo: 54 (Still working on the whole time concept)

19. What time do you wake up? 

10yo: 7am (Unless of course no one wrestles her out of bed, then anywhere up until midday)
8yo: When Jack wakes me up (Correctamundo.  Ditto for the rest of the family)
3yo: When Mum & Dad wake up (deluded)
20. Anything else you’d like to add?

10yo: No
8yo: My favourite science is Hurricane  (Well hop to it and learn to read Storm Chaser)
3yo: I like playing in the playground. (I wonder why he forgot to mention how much he loves to block the toilet with unidentified objects?)

Nits. Lice. Louse. Fecking crawling bloodsucking mites. Call them what you want, but I can guarantee, if you have children that attend day care or school, they will be coming to a familiar scalp nearest you.

The note came home today from Sams school. He’s in grade 2. “Please check your childs head, there’s been an outbreak of nits, blah blah blah, sign and return this to say you’ve checked and treated. Sure. I’ll check, treat, sign and return. But the mothers of the kids who heads are freaking well infested won’t, so it’s kinda pointless. I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Elton John had in mind when he sang The Circle of Life.

Nits or lice are simply very small insects that live on the scalp of human beings. Oh and they feed and stay alive by SUCKING BLOOD FROM YOUR SCALP. Did I mention their sole purpose in life is to suck blood from your SKULL?

And when these creatures are having a little nibble, more often than not, preferring young, nubile heads to do so, they make that area incredibly itchy. Hence, the classroom full of head scratching children strikes fear into even the most hardened teacher.

I remember meeting my best friend, in her first year as a teacher for lunch. She was relaying the story of the nit infestation that had taken over her classroom. We were laughing and joking in only the way the unaffected and uninitiated can. Then, from seemingly nowhere, across her forehead, scurried an undeniable nit. My other friend and I both stared and like the children that we were, pointed and taunted. Hideous. Our punishment, it seemed, was due to be doled out some years later in the form of many, many lice infestations of our own.

Nits are nothing new. My mother swore by Pyrenol. I remember sitting as a seven year old, crying in our bathroom with the chemical foam on my head, burning my scalp and stinging my eyes. The only difference now is that we have so many options for treatment available to us.

Here are some of solutions I have tried:

KP24 – The most lethal chemical shit on the planet. I actually thought I had gone blind in one eye once, when using this stuff. Yes, that does mean that the dirty little mites have taken over my head from time to time. Imagine my joy when this happens. Trying to eliminate a thousand of the revolting little fucks from the most curly, knotty and wiry long hair on the planet.

Conditioner and Comb – To be honest, this appears to be the most effective way. Put mountains of generic conditioner into the hair which stuns the little buggers, brush and then get a good nit comb and section by section, comb and wipe on a tissue. When you get a live one, squish it between your fingernails. It may be just me, but that “pop” when you squash them is oddly satisfying. As is the hunt. When things were really bad, this was my daughter and I’s only time together.

Vegetable Oil through hair – I’ve never actually tried this as I am a bit dubious. Sure, it may well work, but being a walking greaseball is about as preferable as being a walking lice hatchery.

Electronic Nit comb – So, in absolute desperation, I decided something that is seventy bucks has GOT to work right? Wrong. All it did was give the kids electric shocks and kill a handful of nits.

Variety of “natural” non chemical solutions. – These are obviously genetically modified nits, the natural stuff was freaking useless.

Teatree oil/Lavender/Eucalyptus and Conditioner spray – I made this concoction myself. Crafty hey? And you know what, it works. I just have to be super vigilant about using it on my kids heads every single day. And it’s kind of like a beacon screaming “Hey look at me classmates, Nits hate my guts, not that I’ve ever had them or anything!” Maddie seriously hates it. UPDATE: I have been alerted to the fact that “Lavender oil has recently been implicated in gynecomastia, the abnormal development of breasts in young boys” So I suggest you don’t use this method. I won’t be now

And to be honest, she was the worst. I swear to god, late last year I reckon I could count the empty sacks at the base of her skull in the hundreds. Empty, meaning the rampant fuckers had at some stage walked her head and sucked her young blood. Twilight has nothing on my kid.

But this year, since Christmas 2009, she hasn’t had any. So that is nearly 6 months of being given the all clear. Too good to be true or just the age where it they miraculously disappear?

After finding only a few empty sacks on Sams head, I can only conclude, he’s a breeder. He simply incubates, hatches and then passes the special gifts onto his classmates. He’s such a giver.

Best go mix a batch of my special potion methinks.

I’ll leave you with this lovely quote from @thinkthinkers on Twitter “Often if I find the nursery is in one child’s hair, the nightclub is in the others. #nits”