The L Word

The L Word. The word that causes your kids to be sent home from school and makes your head itch for no apparent reason. It's a four letter word.

Lice.

EEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!

I have had lice before. Many times. My girls are unusually friendly and share everything with anybody. Before I moved here (Farfa Yccono - my present house) I would say my stepdaughter had lice roughly 5 or 6 times. Since we've moved (3 1/2 years ago) we only had it once and that was when we FIRST moved, so it's been a while.

I am well educated on these disgusting little blood suckers. I know even the cleanest kids can get them. They are a pest uniquely evolved to survive soley on humans, and have lived on only humans since probably the stone age. They are fast, they produce 300 eggs in a week and they look nasty.

Well my house has them again. My stepdaughter was embarrassed when she got called into the office to have her head checked but I'm not embarrassed. So we have lice? So what? But as it turns out only Angel has any. I know where she got them. Two days after she spent the night with a friend that friend called to say her daughter had lice and I started checking all my kids heads every day. After what I thought was the appropriate timeframe I stopped checking. Well next time I will just go ahead and shampoo everybody because she has lice!

EEEEEEWWW!! (Your head itching yet?)

I went ahead and shampooed everyone's head, and after spending four hours nit-picking (combs don't work on fine hair) I started ripping up everyone's beds. Got a LOOOOOT of laundry to do today!!! Then I started spraying. I sprayed mattresses, backpacks and car seats. I will be boiling all hairbrushes and combs in the house today (I didn't get it done last night so no one could brush their hair today - oops) and throwing every hair tie I find in the wash. I have a special bag for hairties that I originally bought for baby socks that works quite well! Now I have to mop and/or vacuum every room in the house and bag up any stuffed animals too big for the washing machine (since we're using my brother in-law's apartment washing machine that will be quite a lot). Just to be safe I'll bag up the Barbies and Bratz Dolls, too. Lice are icky - I don't want any other kid to get them.

I've already got my computer calendar to tell me to shampoo everyone's head again in ten days.

I'm all set.

I don't like the icky little buggers, but lice isn't the worst thing to happen to kids.