All I wanted to do this weekend was get ready for fall break. We leave this Friday and Charlie is out of town all week so I wanted to get some of it done while he was here and make sure we weren't running around crazy at the last minute like we do before every trip. I finally convinced him after about 10 years that we should go on a Disney Cruise and now it's here.
We got up like we do on most Saturdays and went to Andy's flag football game. Afterwards I took the girls to swim class and then came home to clean up a little because some friends were coming over for dinner. Our final errand was to get the girls' haircut. That's when our weekend got derailed.
I was settling Amanda and myself into the big cushy couch at the hair salon while Sarah was back getting her hair washed when the stylist came up to me. She said something like, "I'm sorry to break this to you, but I'm not going to be able to cut her hair today because she has lice." WHAT?!? Yep, she took me back and showed me Sarah's head and you could see all the little dudes crawling around her scalp. Yuck. Then she checked Amanda and she had it too, although not as advanced as Sarah.
We left the salon with Sarah bawling at an incredible volume and headed to Walgreen's to pick up some RIT. We proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon not doing laundry for our impending vacation but cleaning all the sheets on the kids' and our beds. On top of bagging their stuffed animals, which each girl has about 20 on each of their beds, we vacuumed the couches, bagged up pillows and comforters and blankets and anything else made of cloth they could have touched.
I checked Andy when we got home and he had a slight case as well. So we had to do medicated shampoo on all three kids and then sit for hours going through their hair with a fine tooth comb to get all the eggs out. My friend Theresa is totally a keeper because she actually helped by going through Amanda's hair. Not many people would help their friends by picking lice eggs out of their kid's hair.
The next day we had to do it all again. We didn't wash all the sheets but we had to strip the beds and put everything in the dryer on hot for 30-40 minutes then make all the beds again. Then re-shampoo the kids hair and go through them again with the special comb. This morning before they went to school I did a quick check and did a more thorough one this evening before bed. This has become my life.
Best of all, Theresa checked my head today and found a few eggs so I had to do the medicated shampoo on myself this evening. With Charlie out of town I did the best with the comb but am positive I didn't get it all. Luckily I also have a very slight case at this point.
I don't ever remember having this as a kid and am very thankful for that. I know tons of kids get it, but I was kind of smug thinking that we wouldn't be one of them. Wrong again Mommy. When people used to tell me how much it sucked to get lice I definitely commiserated with them, but you really don't know how horrible and time consuming it is until it happens to you. Kind of like having a kid, you don't truly know what it's like until you've experienced it yourself. Except having a kid has a lot of rewards, while having lice just sucks.
I really hope we are done with this before we get on the plane on Friday, but most of the stuff I read says it's a 2-3 week process to rid yourself of lice. So we'll get a clean as we can before we go and bring our combs along with us. I am not going to let this ruin our amazing vacation. Stupid lice!
No comments:
Post a Comment