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!”

My son has been sick for over a week. I took him to the doctor on Saturday and he was diagnosed with pneumonia (again) and a sinus infection (he is prone to them, even with a sinus rinse every day). Sigh.

Because he is also prone to gagging, the congestion and post-nasal crud he has can cause vomiting in a split second. One drip in the wrong spot down his throat and he’s heaving.

Since my new, amaze-bed has an adjustable base, he’s been sleeping with me and his dad for the last week. We can prop the head of the mattress up with the push of a button…you know, so his crud can drip properly and I don’t have to wash vomit-laden sheets. You’re welcome.

So, yeah…he’s been in our bed. Oh, hey, have I ever mentioned that I’m an insomniac?

He’s finally improving, but having him in my bed, just inches from my face, with his sinus-infected snoring and feverish shivering, plus the fact that bacterial infections are always scary for us, means that I haven’t had much sleep in the last seven nights. I’m exhausted. Talk to me wrong and I’ll burst into tears. Just try it.

This morning, my almost-teen daughter came downstairs to find me staring into space and sipping my coffee with one of our dogs, Daisy, next to me on the couch. I had just seen my reflection a few minutes prior. It wasn’t pretty. Let’s just say there was some epic bed-head going on.

My daughter sat down on the couch and asked, “Are you tired?”

I replied, “Yeah. I’m beat. Your brother has been keeping me awake, so last night I tried to sleep in his bed, but it’s all springy, which is fine when you’re 45 pounds, but I AM SO NOT 45 pounds. I’ll be drinking coffee all day to stay awake and tonight? Well, tonight he has to go back to his room no matter what. I have GOT to get some sleep!”

A few minutes passed. I watched the news, sipped more coffee and we both petted Daisy, who was still laying between us on the couch.

Then Daisy yawned.

And, my daughter again asked, “Are you tired?”

This time I replied, “Wait, when you asked me earlier if I was tired, were you talking to the dog?”

Yeah, that’s right.

She’s so lucky that I didn’t burst into tears.

The clock is ticking, but there is no sound. It’s not like the clock that stood in my grandmother’s living room, chiming the day away in fifteen minute increments. Tick-tock, ding-dong, ding-dong.

It’s a clock with glowing numbers that stares back at me from my husband’s nightstand, jumping minute by minute into the next hour and then into the next day. The red digits cut through the silence, loudly reminding me of the sleep I do not get.

The dog’s collar jingles from the hallway and she enters my room; her keen senses tell her I’m awake. Maybe a walk, she thinks. “Not yet” I whisper and pat her head.

I rise and tiptoe out of the bedroom and the young dog follows. I can hear my son snoring and see the glow of my daughter’s charging cell phone bouncing off of the overhead light. I walk slowly down the creaking steps and shuffle to the kitchen where I reach for the timer on the coffeepot. Click. I turn it on long before its timer is set to brew.

I stretch. I bend. I yawn. I feel the cold tile beneath my bare feet and I shiver until the chill has vanished. I lean on the counter and tap my fingers. I wait.

When the coffee is ready, I hold the warm mug in both hands and plop down on the couch. The dog curls up next to me and as she drifts off and dreams of chasing squirrels, I look up to see a green light shining from the cable box.

Tick-tock.

On Tuesday night I went to bed early because I had to get up at 4:00am on Wednesday. After one-and-a-half Ambien, I was snoozing at, roughly, 9:30pm.

My husband was at a hockey game, so when I started getting ready to hit the hay (at 8:15…because that’s how long it takes a woman to actually move from the couch to bed when there are a dozen obstacles in her way…oh, for instance, like her 12 year old’s paper on kangaroo rats) I sent my husband a text telling him he had a short “honey-do” list waiting on the kitchen counter. It should be noted, that this is something I never do.

The list said:

1. Please fold the clothes in the dryer to the best of your ability.

2. Put the clothes from the washer into the dryer.

3. Throw the towels we use for the dogs into the washer, with lots of detergent, bleach and hot water.

When I woke, long before the sun had risen, I went to finish the laundry he had started, only to find that he had already done it. TWO loads of laundry were folded and stacked on the dining room table instead of just one.

When he got out of bed I asked, “What got into you?”

Which is when any impression that he had done it out of the goodness of his heart was vanquished when he replied, “Because, now you won’t be able to say that I haven’t done a single load of laundry in 16 years.”