Unwelcome Guests

I want to shout from the rooftop! Swing from the chandelier! Stop traffic and tell somebody!!! The evil guests are gone!! What am I talking about? Well, those of you who only know me by blog, you'll be surprised to know that I have only set foot out my door twice in 14 days...my car did not leave the garage for 13 days...and my washing machine hasn't shut off for two, long weeks.

My children had head lice!! Lice, people!

I found it two weeks ago yesterday after a long week of Jarrod being gone for work. I was right on pace to get the kids into bed 20 minutes early so I could enjoy some extra, much needed mama-time. As I was drying my sweet little Jack after his bath, I noticed a 'mole' beside his regular little birthmark he has along his hairline. My stomach sank, I started sweating, my hands were shaking....I don't do bugs. And bug it was! Disgusting little insects that feed off human blood by way of the scalp. I could just gag thinking about it!!
'Why is this happening?' I thought. 'I thought only dirty people got lice,' I argued.
So, I did anything any normal mother would do...I panicked! I called my mom freaking out, then called my BFF, Robin, who was on her way at once, armed with rubber gloves and protective head gear. :) That night, Robin and I did laundry for hours, changed all the bedding, shampooed my children with (probably very harmful) lice shampoo, and combed through every hair on my children's' heads. It's funny now, not then, but the first instruction on the lice shampoo box is DON'T PANIC!! Yeah right, little illustration with the smiling mother combing through a lice-infested head!!

(here's a picture of what lice really look like...I had no idea they were actual bugs, I thought they were tiny little white dot-like things...but that's just what their eggs look like.)

The days following that night are a blur. In order to rid ourselves of these horrible beasts, I had to change bedding daily, towels could not be used more than once, clothes either, every thing in the house was vacuumed at least once a day, and don't forget the combing. Each person in the family had to have thorough head checks daily. And if you can't tell I've been quite fanatical, so my poor children had up to seven checks a day some days. Their poor little heads probably have scars from me picking through their hair!

The tricky part with lice is that you have to not see anything in your hair for seven straight days before you are considered 'lice free.' And for us, it was seven days before we saw nothing consistently...meaning seven days past that, we were good to go...somewhere, anywhere!! So here we are, free at last!

And if you haven't heard enough, here's some 'fun' lice trivia that I've learned. (I pretty much think I have a degree in head lice at this point.)
~ A little lice egg is stuck to the hair follicle with a glue-like substance, making it nearly impossible to simply comb out. An egg (also called a nit) can only be removed by snipping off the hair it's on or pulling that hair out.

~Ever wondered where the term nit-picky came from? See the point above and now you know. Funny, right?
Or how about the phrase 'going through it with a fine-toothed comb?'

~There is a lice hotline...1-888-LICE-LINE...and I called it....twice.

This has been a tough go for us. I am happy to say I got through it with only one major breakdown, which came on day three and I was still in my pj's at 3pm, vacuuming, scrubbing, sweating. I went into the living room only to find my kids, one upside down on the couch with his head between the couch cushions, the other doing a somersault on the carpet, the other laying across the chair watching TV.
'There's no possible way we're ever going to get rid of this!' I thought. So I collapsed...on the floor...crying...called my mom. Then I was good, well, better but not really good.

But we got through it. The battle is won! Ding-dong the lice are dead!

We went through a lot together as a family in those two weeks. We played with toys we'd forgotten about, watched how hard our washing machine can work...

...turned 8!....

...and had our first official poo-poo in the potty chair!

God is good and we're bug free!
I pray this never happens to your family or to ours...ever....again!

'And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.' (and all the nits too)
Matthew 10:30




PS: I must give a shout out to my friend Robin. She can be found blogging here. Give her some love...tell her what an amazing person she is. I don't know many who would pick through their friend's hair for lice! Thank you, friend!