Literally.
One of the bonuses of homeschooling is that you don't have to deal with some of the inconveniences traditional within the public school experience.
Or so I thought.
Until yesterday.
At which time I received a little news bulletin that went something like this:
"Mom, 6 of 8 has some kind of little bug crawling in her hair."
Yeah.
It was just on Sunday that I was teaching on the dangers of bowing down to an idol of pride.
I think now that perhaps I was harboring Lice Pride.
As in, my kids have never had them.
Until yesterday.
And don't let the exponential possibility of this circumstance escape your purview. There are ten people in this family.
Ten.
Several of whom share bedrooms. And linens. And the occasional toothbrush.
Accidentally.
But still.
So I wasn't going to post about this nit picking issue. But then I thought that maybe I should. Maybe I could use a little dose of housekeeping humility. So there it is. Two of my kids had lice yesterday. And if this makes you feel a little superior, good for you. And if you can commiserate, bless you. Bless you.
So we fire-bombed those little critters. We did the whole lice shampoo thing. We did the whole comb-out thing. 2 of 8 worked on 6 of 8's follicles for five hours. Five.
I wasn't personally quite that dedicated when it came to 4 of 8's head.
All told, there were actually very few critters, although one seems one too many. The laundry has all been boiled on the 'white' cycle, then cooked in the dryer. All the other kids have been examined and plastered in tea tree oil (which, urban legend has it, is a natural deterrent). The stuffed animals are bagged, the furniture vacuumed, my cuticles peeled and raw.
My amazing neighbor JT soothed my literally ruffled (and picked through and thoroughly examined) feathers and told me that she had always heard that lice prefer clean hair, ergo, my children must be quite clean. Maybe it's just something they tell suburban moms to assuage the guilt, but I don't care. I'm hanging on to it.
My best buddy JK scrambled to look up removal info for me as I called her multiple times yesterday. She affirmed my initial actions of scrubbing, drying, vacuuming, picking, washing, bagging and bleaching. And then she found this profound tidbit of advice on some internet site that said, "For prevention, do not let your children play with other neighborhood children who have untreated lice."
Whew.
How helpful.
'Cuz, ya know, all the kids in my neighborhood who have untreated lice wander the sidewalks with signs around their necks alerting us to this fact.
Not.
I'd keep writing, but I think I've grossed you out enough for now.
And my head itches.
20 comments:
As a precaution, you will want to continue checking everyday for a week or so. Not fun, I am sure. This product is nontoxic to people and very effective.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10309531
Hope you don't ever have to use it.
Lice have a 4 day life cycle so you want to just hit them again at that time with the shampoo/spray/foam/whatever you used just to be safe. Also because lice breathe through their skin just plastering the whole head of hair with cheap THICK conditioner and leaving it there for a half hour will suffocate them (also kills the nits which most off the shelf treatments dont).
Change of season along with change of hormones after pregnancy has given me a really itchy scalp... I've been getting it checked for creepy crawlies a couple of times a week... I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about them. Thank you for renewing my paranoia tonight :)
Our neighbors kids just had lice for the third time this year and the doctor finally told them to douse the children's hair in olive oil after the shampooing treatments to suffocate the eggs and any remaining lice. Good luck! I've also been told that blonde children rarely every get lice because they prefer the thicker hair. I can't relate to what you are going through, but I certainly feel for you. I take no pride in the fact I've never dealt with it. I have complete and utter sympathy. Hope things get better at your home soon.
while I was reading this post my head keep itching, then my back then my legs, well I'm itchy all over now!!!!
It seams that you did a good job of treating the little heads and the house, sound like a lots of worked!!!! I don't know if I would have been able to do it (I feel really tired lately!)
SO I guess that the bags stuff will be bag for another 2 weeks or so and shampoo treatment done in a few also. Praying that the nasty little bugs dies and never come back to your house.
Email me for details, but you aren't out of the woods yet, by a long shot. If you were actually able to see the critters on two of the kids heads, some of the others probably have it. Go to the following website for a non-pesticide treatment involving Cetaphil cleanser (I'm not that green, but many times the pesticides DO NOT WORK - I have experienced this personally):
http://www.nuvoforheadlice.com/method_explained.htm
My friends have used this treatment successfully. Treat ALL the kids!
Also, vacuum out the car and the car seats (because you don't have enough to do). Good luck, e-mail me anytime, I'll even give you my phone number if you need it.
I am so sorry! We went through head lice last year at this time. I feel your pain. This too shall pass!
It is definitely a humbling experience. I sat down and cried when I realized our children had lice a couple of years ago--all six of them. The best thing we found that worked was to sit each child down every single day and carefully pick through their hair and remove the eggs by hand. We had to do this for about two or three weeks. It helps if you do this outside in the sunlight because they are easier to see. We did everything else as well; vacuuming everything in sight, bagging the toys and stuffed animals, boiling the linens, dousing their heads in strange combinations of tea tree oil/olive oil/mayo, etc. Just remember---this too shall pass!
I'm of the opinion that it has nothing to do with clean or dirty hair but rather type of hair. Both my daughter (clean) and my younger son (dirty) are prone to it. In fact I've just become aware that my son has it now as he had washed his hair this morning and his clean hair was full of white flecks sticking to the hair. I have had a lot of success with a product called Ascabiol which is basically a treatment for scabies. The traditional lice shampoo doesn't impress me. I will probably have to do two shampoos and two comb outs. It is really common.
Egad. Those little suckers are awful. I'm so sorry. What a pain in the tush. Good luck!
I'm sorry. That creates a LOT of work for you!. I didn't know that people got lice any more. I hope my kids aren't next!
So sorry for you all!
To cheer you up, I'll tell you about how my sister and I gave my Mum head lice when we were little.
She knew nothing about it until she was having her hair washed at the hairdressers. The girl took a step back, quickly wrapped up my Mum's hair in a towel and hustled her out of the door, saying in a loud whisper, 'You have head-lice! Come back after you've treated your hair'.
My poor mother then had to go home trying not to itch her still damp hair. When she got out of the car at home, my well-trained father immediately launched into the usual 'Oh wow! Your new haircut's really different! Yeah, I like it!' routine!
On this occasion, it didn't quite work!
I had a college roommate that got lice one semester. She was very neat, very clean, didn't borrow clothes . . . No explanation for how or why SHE of all people would have gotten lice!
The four of us went through "lice treatment," treated our room, spent a day washing linens, clothes, extra blankets, everything! Had our nursing student friends search through our hair every couple days. . .
Thankfully, the three of us managed to stay away from her lice. But I can imagine, with several small children in the house this would be quite an ordeal.
I like posts like this, because otherwise I began to think you all are superhuman, impervious to all human ills, including lice. ;-)
Hang in there!
good times! We once knew a family that was famous for having headlice, and the mom's take on it was "its natural, why do I need to do anything about it?" And she wouldn't, so every year before girl's camp, we'd do the lice check, every year we'd send her daughter home to get treated, every year the mom would tell us "its natural, there's no reason I should have to treat that" and every year we'd have to tell her if she didn't then her daughter would not be going to girl's camp. We went through 5 daughters with this woman. Good luck getting it taken care of. I don't think it means anything about the way you care for your home or your children, (unless you were the type that refuses to treat it, which you aren't.) It just means they picked it up somewhere and now you get to clean it up. Like the others said, "this too shall pass."
We've never had to deal with lice here at my house but lest you think I'm feelin' smug about that, I worked at an elementary school where we had to check all our students every Monday morning. I always felt sorry for the occasional child who caught them and the parents who had to undertake the monumental task of getting rid of them. No fun!
OH, NO! I just found a new blogger I like yesterday dealing with the same thing; she's actually paying someone $100 an hour to come pick through everyone's hair! I had to deal with this for the 1st time last winter when my Kindergartener brought it home from school. I didn't realize it for a while because I hadn't come in contact with it before. We did olive oil, medicated shampoos and gels, tea tree oil, and months of follow-up sifting of damp hair. I heard it's worse in warmer climates. Be diligent and keep checking every day or 2 after baths for any nits. It's hard to see the actual lice, but you have to stay up on the nits and eggs. We cut all the boys' hair very short because it's easier to see and they don't have anything to hold on to! They like clean hair better because the oils in dirtier hair make it too slippery. Also, even after the plague seemed to have passed by, we continued using tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner and the baby coconut shampoo for real little ones as preventatives. Apparently the buggers don't like coconut either.
Our church put out warnings that if your child has lice, they shouldn't come to Sunday school. So, there's a possibility for where your daughter got it.
I'm so sorry! BTDT and I think I'm still suffering from PTSD over it. My eldest daughter came down with it the day we brought home her new sister from the hospital. Lice and hormones do not mix.
In my years of working in daycares, I was told that the staff rarely caught lice because the bugs don't like hair products and hot blow drying. And most adults do one or the other (or both). So, maybe blow dry your kids' hair for the next few weeks???
It's true - they prefer clean hair! So feel proud girl.
I just sat here reading this and itching my head. ewwwwww...
When Nanny Deb first came to live with us (straight from the Children's Home for handicapped that she worked in in England), she brought with her lice. It was awful.
You have my sympathy.
And, i am now officially freaked out because I figured we were safe homeschooling too. UGH!
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