At home with The Simpsons

There's an episode of The Simpsons where Marge and Homer have a day off housework and work and have a relaxing day at a day spa, leaving the baby with Grandpa Simpson (a not so competent baby sitter) and the other kids at school. During the day Bart is discovered to have head lice and Lisa loses a tooth and her shoes. The school notify the authorities and the kids get taken to a foster home (which happens to be just next door at the Flanders' place), and of course much hilarity ensues (and everything is righted by the end of the episode).

Well, I really felt like I was in a part of that episode this weekend! Not the fostering part, but definitely the lost tooth and head lice part. Yes, that's right. Our eldest son finally succumbed to the dreaded nits. I felt terrible about it - are we really so unclean?? But then I realised that he'd been wearing the school "spare" hats since he keeps losing his own hat, and so many people I've talked to about it have had to deal with their kids getting nits, so I didn't feel quite so much the bad parent.

We don't have a "Lisa" in our family like the Simpsons, so our lost tooth belonged to Dante. The tooth wasn't actually lost as such - the dentist pulled it out on Friday because it was loose (someone had bumped him at school). He was very brave at the dentist and that night he received a visit from the Tooth Fairy. I was told afterwards that $2 was a bit much and I'll be out of pocket if I keep that up. So then I explained to Dante that the going rate is $1 and he got extra because this was his very first time. He seemed to be okay with that. Talk about inflation, though... I remember getting 20c for my teeth!

As for the "relaxing day" part of the episode - Dan and I went out to a party with some of my workmates on Saturday night, sans kiddies (Thank god for the wonderful baby sitting skills of my most excellent mother). Dan was the designated driver and I happily drank too much wine and danced with the guys from work. It was a fun, silly evening, which went by all too quickly. The next morning was not so happy, but Dan and I took shifts (he slept in till 10am and I took over sleeping duties until 2pm!).

Anyway, it was back to the slog today, still feeling under the weather. I just can't shake off this illness that has been plaguing me for at least a week now. I took a day part of the day/night cold and flu medication at lunch time today and it really knocked me around - I had to get Dan to drive us home after school because I was feeling so woozy. Bit of a worry.

And as things go in TV world, things will have righted themselves by the end of the episode. The half an hour's not quite up, but the end is in sight (just as soon as we get rid of all these nits and finish cleaning up the house...).