There are several phrases that no mom-to-be EVER thinks to herself:
1. I can't wait for the baby's first blow-out diaper while I am standing at the check-out line in Target
2. I can't wait for my nursing pads to leak all over my silk shirt in the middle of a meeting
3. I just hope that my baby has colic in the middle of the night.
4. Peanut allergies really wouldn't be that bad.
5. I think that it's really cute when babies scream in the car for the entire ride...to California.
6. Sometimes kids just vomit in the middle of the night...in the bed you are sleeping in.
And...
7. I can't wait for my entire household to get.... LICE!!!!!
Yep. It happened. The King kiddos got struck by "THE" bug. And, all we could do was laugh.
(Truth: I cried twice. Once in the morning when I kept piling item after item into the laundry room as I was talking to my mom on the phone. And once at night when I realized I missed the Golden Globes, because priorities.)
The irony that I did a post about my life being like SJPs in this film isn't lost on me.
She gets lice in this film. Luckily, I didn't ... just my kids.
Our day started ordinary. I was getting the kids dressed and as I was putting Landry's hair in piggies I noticed a little gnat looking thing in her hair. I grabbed it out, found Ryan to show him and said what all 21st century moms do, "Google it."
And just as a knight in shining armor sometimes does, he responded with disappointing news, "Yep. It's lice."
We went into immediate containment mode. We were soldiers and these insects were our enemies. Our house had become a battlefield and there was only one solution...kill or itch to death.
We pulled every washable item we have into the laundry room and began our attack.
As I started that process, Ryan jumped in the car and drove to Walgreens to buy our ammunition. On the way home he decided we might need some more, so he stopped at CVS to find one (yes ONE) bottle left in the "lice" section. So, ehm, BCS friends... there may be a little breakout in our parts. Apparently the peak season for lice is winter break.
Why don't they send THAT information home?
"Have a great break! Don't bring back bugs!"
That is much more important than, "Practice your ABCs".
So read this if you want to be armed with knowledge. We were armed with pesticide.
And so it began...
The kids actually thought it was somewhat funny, and honestly we did, too. Maybe because there is nothing else to do but laugh, but well, we went with it. We think Radley is the one that brought it home, he had been scratching his head for a couple of weeks ... enough for us at one point to JOKE that he had lice, but we checked him, Gigi checked him, Jenni checked him, and he got TWO hair cuts with no sign of them. He even went to the doctor for strep and Ryan mentioned it, she looked at his head and told him that it was probably just from the strep rash.
So, as a warning, they can seemingly come out from nowhere!
(And, parents of public school children, there was a state law that passed in Texas that prohibits teachers from sending notifications if lice is reported (like we reported). It has to come from the nurse - and only after a teacher has noticed them on a student. So, yeah.)
Landry was the least biggest fan of the process, so we caved and gave her a paci for the debugging process. It was maybe the one time to date that I was sad my kids had so much hair.
Multiple hours of combing and spraying and de-licing.
Emmy was clearly upset.
;)
This is how Landry felt by the end. She was done.
This is how WE felt by the end. THANK THE LORD we were both nit free. We still went through the treatment, but no bugs. Ryan would have simply just shaved his head, but y'all. I have been growing my hair out to donate it... it would have been kind of tragic if I got lice.
And you would need to pray for the poor soul that had the job of removal.
We spent the afternoon playing outside in the mud, because really, who cares how dirty you are when you have bugs in your hair.
;)
They already got used to lining up for inspection.
And this will more than likely be part of our bedtime routine for the next week or so!
So now, dear readers, my gift to you...
(Thanks to Pam's Clip Art for the pics)
1. Seriously, just laugh. You didn't do anything wrong. Your kids aren't gross and dirty, your house isn't gross and dirty and you aren't a bad parent. In a totally un-Katy way, I don't think I over-reacted to the actual thought of lice. It was funny. And slightly ironic, because if you know me and Ryan, we are those weird clean-freak people. Not germ-a-phobs, just the people who never leave a dish out, who vacuum every day, maybe wipe down the counters all the time. You know, the ones that clean before they leave for vacation? There is really nothing you can do to prevent it from happening and you will survive.
2. Have someone around that can "one-up" your situation. Luckily my parents had already planned on spending the day with us. And while I "insisted" that they didn't come, I was so glad that they did. Pops treated us to a lovely Mickey D's lunch (stressful situation = fastfood goodness) and Gigi has basically handled any and all known situations such as this. This was apparently nothing compared to the scabies epidemic of 1985ish that hit Robinson. I had no recollection of it, but even Jeremy commented, "Hey - remember when we got scabies?" Ew. No.
3. Adopt the motto: Anything can survive hot water once. We washed everything. Every doll. Every blanket. Every hat. Every jacket. Every thing that even {thought} about coming in contact with the kids' heads. Even if it said wash in cold, we washed in hot. Everything has survived. (So far). (Which is kind of unfortunate because do we really need that many stuffed animals?)
4. Laundry mats are cool. I was honestly, not in the mood to go the laundry mat. Change isn't my friend. So since it wasn't in my plan or even on my radar to push some coins in a machine, we didn't go. (I may have a tiny, itsy bitsy, insignificant issue with control.) So, we didn't go this route. BUT... believe me.... you may want to. If this ever happens to you. Which I'm sure it won't. But maybe consider it. You know. Just in case. (I am still doing laundry).
5. God is a funny guy. Remember when my dryer broke and my husband and brother spent the morning of the ALABAMA game driving to San Antonio and back to pick up a new one? Yeah... that's because God knew that in January I would be battling insects living in my kids' heads and needed some big guns to clean all of their belongings. He's such a kidder. ;)
6. McDonald's french fries make everything better. (I felt that was worth mentioning again).
7. COLOR CATCHERS. As the laundry aficionados I assume you all are, you are well aware that some items aren't made to be washed in hot water because their colors fade...all over everything else in the washing machine. Enter these. Seriously, invest in some even if you don't have bugs in your hair.
8. Make it silly for the kids. Best decision we made all day. We made it silly. We never got angry (well, we got a little tense during the removal process) and we definitely didn't want them to freak out or think they did anything wrong. Because they didn't. Was this how we wanted to spend our day? No. Did we EVER think that our kids would EVER come home with lice? No. But they did, and now we have to deal with it. Big deal. Tons worse could happen, so we are thankful this is our burden.
9. Maybe swear off fort building. And stuffed animals. And blankets. And anything else soft to rest your head on for a while. In fact, just sleep on concrete. Too much? The thought of rewashing everything again may be what sends us over the edge. As I was dropping the kids off at school and heading back home to tackle yet another 10 loads of laundry, it hit me. Lice can happen again. And again. AND AGAIN. WHAT?! It's not like chicken pox or some other tiny communicable disease that is "one and done". Someone PLEASE create a vaccine for this. In the meantime, we have quarantined every blanket, pillow, lovey, doll, etc... for the next two weeks. They have all been washed and are now stacked in a corner of our room until we feel it is safe.
10. Be prepared for a financial investment. We have spent over $100 in the 2 days we have been treating the kids. Now, granted, between the five us, we could provide hair for a community of 100 so we needed lots of shampoo. But we don't want them to come back, and I'm assuming you wouldn't either. So we bought the long-term shampoo, and spray, and let's not even discuss the amount of water and laundry detergent we used.
11. More people have had it than you realize. I can't tell you how many people I called or told about this that just replied, "ooooh...I remember when I got it/my sister brought it home/all of my kids had/my parents sent me to school with Vaseline in my hair."
So. That's it.
We survived. And you will, too... if it ever happens to you. (Which I hope it does not).
And now I'm off to fold that one last load of laundry.
And scratch my head.
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