Battle of The Bugs

I'm not ashamed to admit it, we had unwanted guests in our home--the dreaded lice!  It all started earlier this week with my oldest son sitting at the table (doing his mountains of homework--see earlier post),  scratching his neck.  I thought maybe it was a case of tween dandruff or a flea from the dog, but for whatever strange reason it didn't occur to me that it could be that four letter word!

Yesterday as he sat once again, scratching so vigorously that I was sure his foot must be tapping, it finally dawned on me that maybe, just maybe he had little friends camping out in his thick, red hair. So I pulled out my fine toothed Rid comb (purchased as a precaution when my younger son was exposed ) and took a half-hearted look through his hair. Much to my surprise, I found not just a nit or an egg but a creepy crawly with legs!  This parasite had set up camp behind my son's ear and he had cronies lurking.  I found a total of 3 critters.  YIKES!!  My skin started to crawl, my heart started to race, my scalp started to itch!  I knew I needed to put the rest of my kids under the microscope and took on the task of inspecting each child's scalp.  Lo and behold, one of my twins also had these pesky visitors. After spending 20 minutes nit-picking, I moved on to the other two kids and fortunately they appeared to be louse free.  I then called several friends for info on which lice shampoo to purchase and ended up at Whole Foods where I picked up  the last two packages of Licefreee! and an order of Thai basil noodle soup to go (a girl needs her strength)! My husband and I applied the shampoo to all of the kids' hair and they sat around watching iCarly, smelling of licorice and resembling lunch ladies.  I then proceeded to strip the beds, vacuum, bag up stuffed animals, wash everyone's jackets AND quiz my son on his suffix test!  It was a long night!

Today, my husband and I made the necessary calls to the schools and sent out our own public service announcements to friends who might have been exposed.  Thankfully, my  sweet friend (with prior experience) came over and examined us with her keen eyes only to find a couple more nits in my son's hair AND a nit and egg in MINE!!!  So much for me, the parent, being louse free!  So now, after having spent my day disinfecting the couches, doing more laundry than a city laundromat and greasing up my hair with Cetaphil (followed by a Silkwood shower), I sit here typing with a glass of wine at my side, mountains of laundry on my couch, and Licefreee! and a shower cap on my head, all the while humming the tune to a one hit wonder named Vanilla!