lice, lice baby

The hubs and I got the email from daycare, and since they feel the need to email about anything and everything mundane, we ignored it.  Until the subject line of "Lice in Your Child's Classroom" or something else to the same effect was noticed.  It's not the first lice outbreak, certainly won't be the last. But the hubs and I are stumbling in the dark, blindfolded, when it comes to lice.  Neither of us have ever had lice, nor have either of our kids.

Britton was scratching her head like crazy, and I knew enough to know that it was a sign of the dreaded lice moving in.  But every time I checked her head I saw nothing.  Flash forward to the assistant director calling me, in her beautiful British accent, telling me that they've discovered lice on Britton's head.  And then she of course felt the need to add, "She's been scratching her head all day!"  And I know that translates to, "How could you NOT have seen the lice infecting your poor child's scalp?"  But honestly, the lice are tiny and the same color as her hair, and I just never saw them.  

The hubs stopped by Walgreens to get the lice shampoo kit, and I tortured that poor girl with chemicals and a steel comb for the next hour.  All the while, the hubs is stripping every bed linen, every towel, every piece of clothing that may have ever touched Britton's head, and he's running six loads of laundry in the hottest water our over-worked hot water heater will put out.

I made Britton wear my robe while I was combing her hair, and she loved the robe.  So when her reward for her responsibility chart came up due, and the Elsa costume she really wanted was sold out everywhere (seriously, everywhere, and I'm not paying $250 on Amazon), I spied this robe at Kohls and hooked the girl up with her own robe.  Funny enough, I was at Kohls in the first place because I was buying Britton new headbands.  We had soaked her headbands overnight, and what I thought was dish soap was actually bleach alternative laundry detergent (the hubs added it and I just assumed, and yes we all know what happens when you assume), and the bleach destroyed all her headbands.  Bright side?  If those headbands did have lice, no way they survived.  And they made it into the trashcan regardless.

Barrett doesn't have lice, but doesn't he look majorly concerned?

And not at all convinced that my constant vacuuming is keeping the lice at bay.  That's sideways eye, and we both know it.

We ignored the recommendations to suffocate the lice with olive oil on Britton's scalp every night for two weeks (is there an easier way to destroy bed linens than OIL?) and went with the chemical treatments, twice, a week apart.  And the hubs and I can't stop scratching our own heads. Psychosomatic is real!  500 checks of our scalps has yielded no lice, but the very idea gets me scratching like I'm trying to remove hair follicles.  

Hopefully this is all behind us because I can't handle anymore infestations.  I would much rather take walks in the rain!