Pediculosis Capitis

In celebration of Memorial Day weekend, my oldest invited over a few friends from school. (Well, actually about 10-15 friends and approximately 200 of their viable offspring.) And I really wasn't prepared for the sheer number of guests in my home and the utter demands they would place on our family. Honestly, our house guests insisted that we bag up all of the children's stuffed animals, blankets and even the sofa cushions. They requested that the entire house be vacuumed. (Well, it did need it. Who am I kidding?) And they demanded that every last scrap of bedding, bath towels, and clothing be washed in very hot water and dried even hotter. Annoying little buggers, really. Yes, my friends. We Had Head Lice.

Apparently head lice is "going around" my son's 2nd-grade classroom, and let me gripe for a moment that the nurse's notice about the same failed to reach my doorstep. (How was I to know that the "gnats" I'd noticed a few nights earlier --That's funny! They must have flown into your hair when you were on your scooter!-- weren't gnats at all.) In retrospect, it was not funny. At all. Head lice is/are (for the love of god there are so many, I think I need the plural here) something you don’t want to know about, or be an expert in, or find yourself Googling frantically about for some fool-proof method of certain death for the lil’ critters. I've learned that there are two camps in the battle with head lice. The first camp likes to use products from the kitchen (mayonnaise, olive oil, even peanut butter) in combination with Saran Wrap, and/or plastic shopping bags and/or shower caps. The second camp goes straight for the chemical treatments like, RID or Lice MD. I'm a big peanut-butter lover, and enjoy scooping it out by the spoonful on occasion so the thought of trapping lice and nits in a perfectly good jar of Skippy just seems wrong. I went straight for the chemicals.

Unfortunately, lice have become resistant to the chemicals. So, instead of killing the lice the RID (WalMart $13.94 for 8 fl. oz) just makes them a little woozy. They drift down onto your child's forehead after basking in the chemical pool and act a little stunned, moving just slowly enough so you can pick them off. Now, I have to stop narrating to say that during all of this, my son was very matter-of-fact. No, he was more than that. He was a champ. I hate that term, but seriously there's no other way to describe it. As he was holding the washcloth over his eyes, waiting for the ten minutes to be up, he only exclaimed in mild panic once stating, "Mommy! I can feel them crawling!"

I on the other hand had a freak-out of epic proportion necessitating some nerve-calming pharmaceuticals. (Yes, yes. This was out of view of my sweet, infested boy with whom I tried my darnedest to appear calm and in control of the situation.) Post-medicinals I really set to work figuring out next steps. The "treatment" as people like to say in the World of Lice, isn't going to treat the whole problem. There's the house to clean (see paragraph 1) and Don't Forget Your Car! Head lice purists know that there is really only one way to end the madness. Through careful, thorough, persistent nit-picking you will ensure the lice are gone for good.

Now, I think of myself as "nit-picky" about certain things. For example, I don’t like it when the hand towel falls on the bathroom floor, or when people spit toothpaste into the sink and forget to rinse the bowl. (Who wants to look at a blue glob of goo when washing their hands?) Never mind the irritation caused by a crooked picture on the wall. (Can someone get me a level, seriously?) Okay - so there's a bit of OCD in the mix. Whatever. Back to the blog: These sorts of things get under my skin; they annoy me. But nothing compares to real nit-picking. Picking nits off your child's head, which takes hours, gives new meaning to the phrase, "go over with a fine tooth comb."

My husband has become a champion nit-picker. Should you find yourself in a similar situation, you should consider giving him a call. His particular dose of obsessive behavior that in the past enabled him to comb through architectural drawings, shines through in his nit-picking skills. He is thorough, meticulous, and very, very calm. I am still impressed; we are still combing and checking. In the course of one day he picked those 200 or so nits from our son's head. (I think there’s a job opportunity there.) Apparently other people have realized there is money to be made in doing a task nobody wants to do. "Hair Fairies" located in LA and Chicago will pick your nits for $75/hour. No hair fairies on the East Coast. I checked. Here's the full story if you're interested: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6556831

As of 10:20 p.m. on this all-is-getting-calmer Thursday evening, I am hopeful that we are through the worst, that the rest of the family has been spared, and that some day soon my home will not smell like Lysol. Until next Thursday, friends. Please keep your fingers crossed our house guests don't return.