They Followed Us to the Burbs

It was bound to happen. Three kids in school, whether in the city or the burbs,  it was bound to happen.
Yeap! The kids, all of three of them got head lice.

I came home from a great morning in the city to find the babysitter with her hair up and an embarrassed look on her face..."um..., I think she has lice...well I'm sure actually because I saw a live one." OMG! OMG!  Panic, horror, shame are just some of the feelings that ran through me. I'd dreaded this for 5 years, every time we got one of those headlice notices from school and trust me we've gotten plenty of them over the years.

I threw 2 out of the three kids into the car and sped off to CVS.
Ok but once there I had no idea what isle to go to....hair products, kiddie product. I finally find a sales assistant and quietly ask him. He gives me a knowing smile and leads me to the fungus section. Fungus really?  There it is on the bottom shelf. I proceed to buy over a hundred dollars worth of lice extermination product and feel like I've taken an important first step. In hindsight that was complete delusion but whatever it made me feel better at that moment!

We dash home and wait for child #3 to get off the bus.
In the meantime I send child #1 and #2 to gather all of their stuffed animals and put them into garbage bags. Once upon a time I'd heard that's what you're suppose to do but truth be told I have to no idea what I'm suppose to do I just want these bugs out of my house.

Child #3 comes home with a friend. "You can't stay here kid, I say to his friend, run for your life!"
My son stares at me and wonders what the emergency is.
"Well you have bugs in your hair. In fact we all do. So we have to get rid of the bugs and their babies NOW!" "oh and until we get rid of them you can't be in contact with anyone!"
My son is way calmer than I am about this and just says "ok, can I have a snack first?"

So snack for the kids, panic reading for mom. I'm so upset that I have to reread the instructions on the box three times.

I strip everyone put the highly toxic and fowl smelling hair treatment on the heads of my adored children that these bugs I have dared to invade.

At this point I feel slightly better. That's because I thought we had killed the lice. But I now know that it's only the tip of the iceberg.

So next step is combing everything out of my kids hair, the lice and their eggs. That's should be easy enough. The only problem being that I had no clue what I was looking for. I thought I was looking for white eggs, the shells of these monsters... but with son #1 I found actual, moving, live lice. Brown with six legs. I screamed and almost threw up. Then promptly had a glass of wine.

There were plenty of other challenges. The tiny comb they provide in the kit removes nothing from a toddler's fine hair so for child #2,  I could see the buggers but I couldn't get them out.

Finally the eggs are almost invisible on blond hair which made it so hard to help child #3. I knew they were there but I could barely see them.

I started the process at 4pm by 6:30pm I was still working on child # 1 and I hadn't even starting disinfecting the house. I promptly called hubby and told him to get home because one mom is no match for three heads filled with lice.

I continued combing out these monsters until 9PM. That night the kids had burned chicken nuggets for dinner.

Somewhere during that time, I take apart the kids beds, our couches, their lounging chairs and bagged them up in garbage bags, along with their backpacks, helmets, stuffed animals and rugs. I also did the first of my thirty loads of high heat washing. The washing machine has in fact been running continuously, I truly mean continuously for the last 48 hours.

So at 9:00PM I strip the kids and myself of the clothes we've been wearing for the combing out session and put everyone to bed.

Now it's my turn. I feel a weird sense of relief when I put on the foul smelling product into my hair. Hopefully I didn't catch it but what are the chances, I'm a hugger and a frequent hugger and my three kids have lice....what are the chances I didn't get it....oh why or why did I hug my children?

Anyway I dry my hair and try to get some sleep, tomorrow's going to be a long day.