Headlice. Every school child’s caregiver’s nightmare?
Maybe once every 2nd month, we receive a notice home from school that head lice have been present in our classroom. At least once a week, I wash my son’s hair with tea tree based shampoo. And while I don’t scrutinize every hair on his head every time a notice comes in, I do check.
So when we got a notice Monday, I checked. And again Wednesday. Good thing, because there it was, the creepy signs of head lice! A nit here, a crawling thing there. (actually it was only one crawlie thing and maybe 14 nits altogether. But that is enough to wage war, let me tell you!) I instantly became a freaked out mother, calling in to work and keeping her son home, to endure 9 hours of scrubbing, rinsing, oiling, de-nitting, and thorough fine tooth combing. I swear I went to war on that little head of hair. But a battle was won. 24 hours later, he was nit free. Not a sign of anything other than remnants of remedies. Back to school. And I could hardly move. Was that a marathon?! Our home looks like we are packing to go on vacation. Piles of bedding already washed and over dried in hot hot heat. Stuffies tied up in baggies, to sit in suffocation for a couple of weeks. Vinegar bottles and combs and scattered sanity everywhere.
I also went to town on my own hair, because the itches felt more than sympathetic. And I have to say, the thousands of strokes by comb, the oils and vinegars, they sure did bring out the shine and sheen of my scatterings of silver hair! That or the experience gave me a few handfuls of new ones!
Awful awful day! Contemplating shorter hair cuts. For us both. Also contemplating some relaxation exercises. And eventually making the beds with proper bedding again. It has been washed and dried and bagged and set aside. It Must be clean and ok to use again! (Also, probably was a bit extreme to vacuum the couch, but hey, it needed to be done anyway!)
Summer is nearly here. Which means? Less exposure to other kids? Not really. Teatree shampoo for all! (Just writing this confession has left me itchy, so I am going to go run the fine tooth comb through again, even this is getting beyond ridiculous…)
tracesofnut 