Yessss….. you read that right. If you’d like a perfect blog, with a perfect family, with perfect kids you are in the wrong space. This is a real-life, want-to-quit, parenting-sucks-sometimes scenario. And this is the story about how my life got turned upside down and my kid got head lice.
(And if you are going through your own crap, something that obviously trumps head lice, I am so sorry and I really feel for you and you might want to leave now because I am about to get really, really whiny.)
Sometime in the last month, my family has dealt with lice. In an effort to shelter my kids and not embarrass them any further than I already do, I won’t even tell you who.
Here is what you need to know. I don’t think I have been more jacked up in the head in a LOONNNNGGG time. Lice messes with you. Legit makes you feel insane and all logic flies right out the flippin’ window. Shawn went to the store and bought $165 dollars worth of supplies for our lice-killing crusade. I have FLOWN to a different city for less than that trip to Walmart. But I didn’t bat an eye. I would have paid $1000 right then because my headspace was straight up like
As soon as I found the evidence, I thought I might have a little breakdown. I had a kajillion thoughts going on in my head.
Do I have to burn all my stuff’?
What about the curtains?
Do they need to come down?
Replace the carpet?
Can you put the mattresses in the washer?
Is there a company I can hire to help me?
I’ll pay anything. ANYTHING! HELP ME!!!!
I’ll run away and someone else will come in and take care of this and love my kids as I do.
Burn it down. Light a match and walk awwwwaaaayyy.
Ok. Get a Grip. Maybe just the bedding, pillows, mattresses, rugs.
Wait…. we’ll have to burn everything in their bedrooms.
Burning down the house might have been easier than tackling this problem. My kids are EVERYWHERE in this house. Any given day, we go downstairs to watch tv at night, one of them might crawl in our bed and fall asleep. Sometimes they sleep in each other’s beds. Many times a week they gather ALL the blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals in our house and make a complicated fort. I could not say that ANY area in our entire house was safe, so in my mind, it all needed to be torched.
But the good news is that I do happen to live with a sane person who calmed me down and backed me off my ledge. He kept me from dragging everything the kids touched in the last two weeks to the front yard for a bonfire (could you imagine the reaction from my neighbors?)
Instead, he instructed me to drag everything to our living room and thus we started a 48-hour laundry marathon. I didn’t count the loads, but my brand new Speed Queen washer and dryer worked ALL day that first day. We didn’t let them come up for air. Drown any little lice in a hot water wash and then double kill them in the dryer.
Later when we all had been treated for safety, everything had been washed, and we had called and told all of our closest friends and family to be on the watch, I just couldn’t keep it together. I starfished on my bed, face down, exhausted, and I started to sniffle. “What if we never get rid of this?”
He walked away. And rightfully so. He knows me well enough that if he waits out Dramatic Darla, it’s in everyone’s best interest. If there is no audience to whom to direct my diatribe, I’ll likely lose steam.
I didn’t think I was being dramatic. Ok, maybe a little. But I DO recall how once we rescued a kitten and it gave us all ringworm and we had it for six months. SIX. (Read about this awesome time in our lives here.)
He was right. We’ve kicked it and I am acting mostly normal. If you think normal is washing everything after use, Lysol-ing all things that can not be washed twice a day, constantly checking heads, and having nightmares about lice. I’m pretty sure I have PTSD.
I’m fully aware that even writing this will ensure that some of my so-called friends will think differently of me and maybe never let their kids come over to my house again. And that is maybe the silver lining to this whole entire situation.
Having lice is a real gut-wrencher. And an energy drainer. And a budget buster. If you have been through it, welcome to the club, and hallelujah that you made it through to the other side. I wish I had known you were going through it so I could have come over and helped you with the laundry, crying jags, and emptying a couple of bottles of wine.
I thought that if I could get through our kids’ childhood without this little superbug making it into our home, I’d be forever thankful. But raising kids is like a shit sandwich, sometimes you are going to have to take a bite.
Love,
Stef
Some tips:
1. Get some help. A great resource is your school nurse. Mine happens to be one of my good friends and she told us what to use and all kinds of useful information, She came over to my house, checked in on us, and told me to calm down. A lot.
2. Vamousse was our kit of choice based on what we learned from our nurse. Rid and other chemical products have been proven ineffective and harsh. Vamousse is a mousse and is easy to work with. The kit came with the treatment and a shampoo that is to be used again up to 7-10 days afterward.
3. Metal combs. The plastic ones are not easy to use and the metal is way more effective. The kits we bought had metal combs in them.
4. This is a three-week process. You will need to treat, pick nits, and treat again after seven to ten days. And if you are feeling slightly crazy maybe treat again in another seven days. We may treat every seven days for the rest of their dang lives….. Better safe than…… well, burning the house down.
5. The temp of your hot wash or dryer needs to be 140 degrees for at least 40 minutes to make sure nothing lives. NOTHING.’
6. Invest in defense for future breakouts. Invest in Fairy Tales Repel. Shampoo, Conditioner, Hairspray, Detangler. All of it. No idea if it works but buying it does give me peace of mind.