Head Lice

Okay, I am finally ready to write about this.

A few weeks ago, I discovered that Coen had head lice.

Let me back up.  It was going around school. We'd had notes. And calls. But I was determined that it would not happen to us.  I remember as a kid in school when the nurse would come in and dig through our hair with straws, wearing those big goggles.   And I'd be silently praying Please not me. Please not me.   And it never was me.

But Coen and Lucy were both itching their heads.  And finally one night, while Coen was in the bath, I started to inspect.  And I found one. And two. And three.  After Coen was dry and sitting at the table, poring over a Star Wars book, Tad ran out and bought some lice killer.  And we scrubbed. And waited and rinsed and put more stuff in and combed and combed and combed.  And I snipped and Coen sobbed.  And then another rinse. And another comb through. And finally off to bed.

Five loads of laundry later, at 2:00 a.m., just before Tad and I finally went to bed I just thought I'd do a quick comb through Lucy's hair as she slept.  I took the comb to the bathroom and sure enough, there was a crawling one right on there.

Aaaaauuuuughhhhhh!!!!!
Is how I felt.

So we spent a week of washing all the hats, coats, gloves, mittens, blankets, sheets, and bedding and clothing in the house.  And daily washings of the outerwear. Daily dryer runs of all the sheets and pillows and blankets.  And daily hair comb throughs with bribes of Halloween candy.  And a second treatment on day seven.  And the discovery of newly hatched lice babies in Lucy's hair that night and one louse baby in Coen's hair the following day.  And more combing and washing and drying.

And I took them both for haircuts and silently prayed that they would not tell the haircut lady that they had had lice.  It was over by then but they didn't seem ashamed to talk about it.  When my mom came over and I was combing through Lucy's hair, she said matter-of-factly "She's looking for bugs".  No shame there.  Coen was slightly more affronted by the idea of the whole thing. 

And finally....we are lice free.  I feel like I've never done so much laundry and combing of hair in all my life.  But we made it. And all said and done, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.    I even made a public service announcement.  You can watch it below.

My Puppet Public Service Announcement about Lice

 Oh what a happy day it was when I checked on day 21 and nothing nothing nothing.  Lucy drew balloons on paper and said we'd have a lice free party.  At the store today, walking down the aisle, I said something about Christmas lights.

"Christmas lice???" Lucy shouted.  I saw a few people stifle laughs.  Oh if they only knew.