The littlest member of the family brought home a gift for us this week. If you recognize that very fine-toothed comb up there, you know of what I speak.
I’ve always thought it was rather sweet how the boys end up sleeping together most nights, sharing blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals. And I have never minded it when they wanted to spend the night in my bed while I am away on a trip. This week, though, I’m singing a slightly different tune, as every. single. soft. thing. those two have touched in the last week needs to be laundered.
I’m tempted to make everyone sleep on the cold, hard, kitchen floor tonight until every nit has been picked. Blech. My scalp itches just thinking about it.
This whole thing started two days ago with a call from the school nurse. The day before that it was surprise dental surgery for Neil, which landed him in bed (or on the couch) for most of the day sleeping off the anesthesia, and me in the car picking up medication and playing taxi.
So, yeah, kind of a busy-having, challenging, weird week. It’s taken me three days just to get a small pile of orders out the door, in between laundry processing, scalp treatments, and drug store runs (and if you’re one of my customers who has experienced a delay, I do apologize)!
On the plus side, I bought a rice cooker online, which arrived here in record time, and gave us the most delicious sticky jasmine rice for supper last night. Mmmmm.
Ok, well, I just wanted to check in and let you know I was alive. I owe email to a few of you who were interested in shawl pins, and I will get to it, I promise. For now, though, I have some laundry-related tasks to attend to. Oh, joy.
P.S. Not a fan of bug talk? You’ll be happy to know I’ve been sitting on a less skin-crawly entry since Tuesday, and I expect to get it posted in the next few days. Just waiting for one last little bit of information I need to add.
If you have a second round, try mayo and a shower cap overnight. A little drippy, but cheap and effective. Recommended by our doctor.
I’ve heard that – and olive oil, too. Am holding out hope that the stuff I bought, and nightly use of the nit comb will do the trick.
I was at my sister’s school (she works at an elementary school) and they had a break out…one of the women in the office said that she has so much product and chemicals on her hair (either a perm or coloring) that she will never have an issue.
Apparently they only like non treated hair…I guess product doesn’t munch well 😉
but getting boys to mousse, hairspray and color, isn’t very easy is it!
Hm, no. Heck, getting boys to wash isn’t very easy, LOL! I wash my hair with baking soda, haven’t dyed it in some time, and use the tiniest squirt of hair spray on the front. No wonder the little buggers liked my scalp.
Well, Lisa, look at the brighter side…that comb looks like it might make a cool mokume gane texture tool :>)
.-= See Doreen’s latest blog post: My BFFs =-.
Now that is a bright side! And I ended up with two of those combs – definitely going to sneak one of them into my toolbox when this scourge is over. Thanks for the idea!
Oh, ugh. I picked some up from one of my little cousins when I was about 13 or 14. The one good thing was that no one outside my family knew about it…girls at that age can be pretty vicious, and 9th grade would have been even more hellish than it already was if this had been generally known.
Luckily, by that time, I wasn’t much into stuffed animals and the like, so once I got the bugs off my head (I used a product called Rid and a fine-tooth comb, and I think I also got my hair cut pretty short to make it easier), I didn’t have a recurrence.
I had them as a kid, too. I was younger than that, though, and don’t remember it much.
Your comment had me thinking, though, that maybe I shouldn’t have outed my kids as having lice in such a public spot as this blog. I talked to Aidan about it this morning, and he’s not embarrassed, nor does he think that his classmates will be mean about it. Times must have changed since we were kids…
BTDT this school year. Can’t shave N’s head either (though I almost shaved my own). We used the shampoo then hired an expert to come out and do the nit-picking, that’s how freaked out I was. After she did her thing, she had N and me soak our heads with olive oil and wear shower caps to bed. Then in the morning we had to wash our hair like four times, but it did the trick. (She came back a week later to check for sure. Totally worth the price.)
I dyed my hair, too–which doesn’t actually work that well, but it made me feel like I was doing something.
.-= See Penny’s latest blog post: What I read in 2009 =-.
Head shaving sure would be easier.
I bought this stuff called Licefreee and I think the idea is the same as the olive oil and mayo tricks – suffocate the little buggers. It’s a non-toxic gel with an active ingredient of salt, and you saturate your head with it, put on a plastic cap, and keep it like that for an hour or so. Then you use the nit comb daily and re-treat in a week. I’m crossing my fingers that it does the trick. Nit-picking duty is not my favorite thing in the world.
If it doesn’t work, I may seek professional help. Wonder what kind of person chooses that as a career path.
In our case, it was a super-cool young woman who grew up in the Philippines and had training to be a physical therapist there–but was still working on getting her certification here. So, basically she was a student again, and making money in the meantime. She said in the Philippines every mom and auntie and sister takes a turn at this when the need arises. But here, so few people have extended family nearby, that they need to hire someone. (I’m fine with handling my kid’s head; but when it’s MY head, who will do it?)
.-= See Penny’s latest blog post: What I read in 2009 =-.
Neil took care of my head, which I was a bit surprised about, given how squeamish he normally is!
I share your pain. Over 10 years, we’ve gone through 6 outbreaks between the three daycares I’ve worked at (and I only got hit once). Try checking 18 heads belonging to squirmy two-year olds! Yikes!
The secret: after 1st treatment, use that metal comb EVERYDAY until 2nd treatment.
You’ll get through it, even though it is a pain in the butt to wash stuff, ban toys to freezer or scorch things in dryer.
Oh, I’m so glad my kids are no longer squirmy 2-year-olds – what a nightmare that must have been!
Definitely continuing with the nit comb. My husband is on laundry/freezing/scorching duty and I get the joy of tending to everyone’s hair. Such a fun time…
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