sweet savannah: The Lice Outbreak That Broke A Girl's Heart

We had only been home for one week and guess what little nasty surprise I found on Savannah.... LICE. No clue where she got it from (my guess and the doctor's was the hotel we stayed in on the way home). We have not been around anyone so it is all a little suspect. Either way, she had it... it was DISGUSTING... mom treated it and now we are lice free (fingers crossed). You would think that the story would stop there, oooooooh but it doesn't.

So the doctor told me that along with treating Savannah I needed to strip and clean everything that Savannah had been in close contact with... bedding, clothes, furniture, toys, etc. So I went to work and managed to get our entire house lice free within a day. Most things I was able to wash and dry on high heat to kill the eggs. Savannah's Barbie doll, Disney princess dolls, and American Girl dolls Alice and Sparkle had to be tied up in trash bags and placed out in the garage in the heat to kill the eggs since they could not be put in the dryer. Incase you aren't aware, these items are pretty much Savannah's most favorite things in her life. SO me having to bag them for a couple of days was a nightmare for her. Especially Alice... that is her BFF and not having her beside her every second of the day was torture for Savannah. So two days later I went out into the garage to unbag her friends and the bags were gone. My heart sunk... I immediately knew this was not going to end well. I ran inside to ask Eric what happened to the bags (hoping he was not going to say what I thought had happened). Sure enough... he confirmed the worst... he put them on the curb that morning with the trash. He forgot that they were out there and just grabbed them and added them to the trash going out on trash day. This may be our worst parenting FAIL to date. Savannah was heartbroken... she was more than heartbroken... I can not even think of a word for how bad off she was. She cried and cried and cried and cried... and not a bratty spoiled little kid cry... it was like she was mourning the loss of friends. For two nights she couldn't fall asleep because Alice was not there. It has been an emotional nightmare for all of us. I am pretty sure that Eric and I both have probably never felt as bad as we did this past weekend. I mean, it's bad enough that she got lice, but then to loose pretty much all her toys all at once because of the stupid lice outbreak... AWFUL!!! I spent two nights in her room with her rubbing her back and drying her tears. After two days I finally asked why she was so upset about this. I mean, I understand that these (especially Alice) were her world... but, they were just toys. So I was kind of curious what she was thinking in her little kid head. Well, I was not prepared at all for her response. She told me that in Toy Story 3 the toys all get thrown in the trash and taken to the dump and that the trash/toys get burned in a huge fire. She broke out crying about how sad she was that her friends were at the dump getting burned. What do you say to that?? I knew exactly what she was talking about. I have seen the movie a bajillion times. I could see the scene from the movie in my head as she was telling me. It's a pretty dramatic and sad scene and I am sure that to her it was a thousand times worse. She was so overwhelmingly sad about the thought of Alice in that kind of pain.

In an attempt to help heal a little bit of the damage that was done, we took Savannah to the American Girl Doll store on Sunday so she could pick out a new Alice. You know it's a big deal when Eric is willing to go to Dallas for it... that should pretty much sum up how important it was for us to do this for her. There was a brief moment of sadness when she saw doll #27 (which was Alice's model)... I thought that maybe she was going to want to get another #27, but she didn't... she said it would be too sad to have a doll that looked just like Alice. So she went with #22... basically Alice with shorter hair, but don't tell Savannah that. It was nice to see her happy again. She was beyond thrilled to have her new friend. All is almost right with the world again. It's going to take some time to repair the major damage this epic fail caused. Oh parenting, you are really hard sometimes.

Introducing Grace (named after Graceland) Lily Tucker-Haynes