HEAD LICE

I am seeing red right now in my house. Our beautiful Belle with the thickest hair in the world has head lice. And I'm not talking a few nits (eggs) and we're done with it. I'm talking crawling bugs and lice (plural for louse) falling out of her hair as we are applying the "big guns" (prescription medicine) onto her head last night.

I am an insanely clean person. My friends make fun of me because I clean out the bathtub with comet every time my kids get in it. My kids take baths and wash their hair every night. My house is clean (most of the time) and now I have bugs! Turns out lice LOVE clean hair (well how was a mother to know?) And as Annie is running around the house last night, promising she'll never wash her hair again, I'm not sure if she truly understood the implications of being the greasy, stinky kid at school, especially middle school. She managed to make Belle cry because she was SO grossed out and wouldn't go anywhere near her. I hope she doesn't mind being quarantined and made fun of when she gets these things.

Nobody else has them and believe me when I say I've been obsessively checking everyone's head in our house. I'm sure we look like monkeys picking at each other. So, today I will spend the day vacuuming, packing pillows and stuffed animals into plastic bags for 2 weeks, spraying furniture with nit killer, throwing away brushes, hair bands, etc, and boiling anything that stays still long enough. Watch out, Freckles (the dog) you might be next!

I was allowed to take Belle back to school today and when I was checking her in with the nurse, 3 little girls in her class were waiting for their moms to come pick them up because they had lice. Can you say OUTBREAK? Belle can't wear her hair down anymore and don't think I won't become OCD about what comes near her head. The nurse assured Belle she wasn't the only one and it had nothing to do with cleanliness as I'm sitting there thinking what things I need to burn at home.

I now am probably the single most educated person when it comes to lice, so if anyone needs "lice advice", I'm your woman and I will eradicate these bugs from my home and child's head if it's the last thing I do. And talk about itching...we all are running around scratching our heads thinking we have little, nasty bugs crawling in our hair. I think I might have PTSD from this whole ordeal...and here's irony for you, Belle's nickname (the name I call her) is "bugface". That has taken on a whole new meaning for me now!

Wish me luck with the extermination and I'll keep y'all updated on my bug killing journey!