I was the only person bringing young children on this corporate plane — and now my daughter most likely had lice! 这架商务机里就我带着小孩子，而现在我女儿身上有虱子。

I spent the rest of the flight in a complete panic, 接下来这一路伴随我陷入了无尽的恐慌。

trying to keep her isolated, her voice down, and her hands out of her hair, while I furiously scanned the web for pictures of lice. 我想方设法把她和别人隔离开，让她小声说话，不让她抓头，同时上网疯狂搜索治疗虱子的方法。

When we landed, everyone piled into rental cars to caravan to the conference hotel, but I told them to go ahead without me; I just needed to "pick something up." 飞机着陆以后，每个人都坐上了出租车陆续去往开会的酒店。我让他们先走，因为我需要“拿点东西”。

I dashed to the nearest pharmacy, where they confirmed my diagnosis. 我冲到最近的药店，医师证实了我的判断。

Fortunately, we had avoided direct contact with anyone else on the plane, so there was no way for the lice to have spread, 幸运的是，在飞机上我成功地避免了任何人和我女儿有直接接触，所以虱子没有扩散，

which saved me from the fatal embarrassment of having to tell the group to check their own heads. 我也就不用尴尬地请其他人察看自己头上有没有虱子。

We grabbed the shampoo that I needed to treat her and, as it turned out, her brother — and spent the night in a marathon hair-washing session. 我抓起有治疗效果的洗发水，一晚上都在房间里给女儿和她哥哥洗头。

I missed the opening night dinner, and when asked why, I said my kids were tired. Frankly, I was too. 当晚，我没去参加会议的开场晚宴，有人问起时，我回答说孩子们太累了。说实话，我也很累。

And even though I managed to escape the lice, I could not stop scratching my head for several days. 而且，就算我想尽办法避免被传染上虱子，我也还是挠了几天的头。

It is impossible to control all the variables when it comes to parenting. 当你做父母时，真的没办法控制住所有的变量。

For women who have achieved previous success by planning ahead and pushing themselves hard, this chaos can be difficult to accept. 那些善于提前规划、努力进取获得成功的女性，她们在成为母亲后通常很难接受生活突如其来的混乱。