Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Dis-GUS-ting!

Friday night my sister in law took the two big kids for a sleepover and Benny went to bed early. I INTENDED to use my evening to make the multitude of cupcakes for the BBQ Birthday party and straightening up the house.

INSTEAD the fickle finger of fate pointed right at my head and said, "yeah, I don't think so!"

At 9:45 pm the phone rang. Never a good sign. We've all but expressly forbidden phone calls after 9 pm that are not of an emergency nature. It's past the kids' bedtime, and thus it is OUR time. It's not telemarketer time or chit chat about blah blah time.
Anyway, the phone ringing after 9 pm or before 9 am is never a good sign, nor is it ever met with happiness.

It was my sister in law.
"Hey you need to come pick up your daughter," she said.

"Is she sick?" I asked.

"Not technically, she's got lice," she answered.

"Are. You. Kidding. Me?" I asked, breath caught in my throat, head immediately aflame with phantom itchiness.

"Yes, I call people at a quarter to 10 at night and joke about lice," she said.

"Oh God! OK, Bob will come get her!"

I dispatched my husband into the night to first pick up all the delousing supplies that WalMart carried, and then to pick up the little buggy one from his sister's house.

Meanwhile, I began to furiously strip beds, toss pillows into the dryer on high heat and the loooong night of laundry began. I think in all I washed at least 11 loads of laundry just that first night. Including all the comforters in the whole house.

Once the first load was in, I began vacuuming. I vacuumed EVERYTHING. Every floor, every couch. I put the vacuum up on the bed mattresses and vacuumed them. Then I did all the floors again, just for good measure. When Bob got home with the buggy one, I was vacuuming the living room couch.

He took over house delousing duties while I stuck the buggy one into the tub and shampooed her hair with the lice shampoo. Smells soooo good. Bleh.

After the shampooing, the fun process of combing began. The bugs were too much for me to handle and I got furloughed back to laundry duty while Bob took over the combing process. Elizabeth, bless her sweet heart, fell asleep in the middle of it, so most of the combing that first night she doesn't remember at all!

Neither Bob nor I got to bed that night before 2 am. In addition to my laundry duties I was also baking cupcakes and dang it, I had only ONE cupcake pan. So I had to bake 12 cupcakes, wait for them to cool off, take them out of the pan, bake another 12 cupcakes.....
It was teeeedious.

The next day we re-combed her hair and tied it up for the BBQ, we warned everyone beforehand of the situation and warned her not to rub her head on anyone.
As far as we know, noone else got infested.

After the party, my sister in law hung around to help us comb out her hair again, and also to check MY hair just in case. No bugs for me!

That day ended around midnight. Sigh.

Sunday morning, another round of combing. More laundry. I slathered Elizabeth's hair in conditioner and tied it up in a bun. I know you're not supposed to do that, but I figured so what. It would at least keep whatever was left in there from spreading around, though by this point we were down to just the nits and I was fairly sure that the lice shampoo should have killed them all.

More combing, more combing....
Fun fun fun!

Monday morning, more combing. I got the kids ready to take Elizabeth to school. I already called and told them the situation, they said she had to be nit-free to come to school. She looked good to me, but the teachers checked her and found a few! Dang!
So she couldn't stay in class yesterday. We came home and treated her again, and more combing. MOOOOOOORE combing.

Luckily, the boys have avoided the lice, somehow. Not that it would be all that hard to get them off of the boys. Given their shorty short hair!

Yesterday afternoon I got so frustrated with all the combing that I chopped 3-4 inches off Elizabeth's hair to make it easier. Now it's just to her shoulders instead of halfway down her back. Sigh. Oh well, short hair is better for the hot summer weather anyway. I'm about to get her hair wet and comb it again....cross your fingers! Nit-free!
It's the last week of school, I'd hate for her to miss out on all the activities because some kid got lice and gave it to her and his or her thoughtless parents didn't bother to tell the school so we could be checking for it. Damn jerk off parents!

3 comments:

Jessica said...

That is so horrible, mostly for you! So much work! Ugh!!!

Kenna said...

Poor Elizabeth. Glad she was able to go to school finally! And that THEY are all gone:)

Unknown said...

Ugh, isn't it awful? Trust me, a LOT of parents are dealing with this right now. Our lice products are selling like mad. The cooties are having a field day! Hope you have them all gone by now.