Monday, June 09, 2008

Lice, day three

After doing a lice treatment Saturday night, and another one last night, I had hoped that we'd be done with the little suckers today. When I combed out Ella's hair last night, I found a few nits, but no live lice. B combed Lily's hair and found a few live lice, but when I checked her head after he finished, I didn't see any sign that she'd ever had lice.

However, I made her stay home from preschool today just in case. I let Ella go to her first day of rock climbing camp since she had been bug-free. Lily spent the morning moping around because she didn't get to do anything fun like Ella did. Instead, she had to go to the grocery store with me and take a nap because she stayed up too late last night because of having her hair combed out.

After Ella got home and I told her that she was going to a friend's house while I went to a doctor's appointment to follow up on my ear infection, I checked the girls' hair again. Unfortunately, I found a live bug on Ella's head, which prompted much wailing when I told her it meant she couldn't go to her friend's house after all. Lily's head, on the other hand, was still spotless. B, as it turns out, is really good at combing lice and nits out of hair. I'll be happy to rent him out for the right price.

When I got home from the doctor's appointment, I had a message from a good friend, whose child is also in Ella's class, that her son also had lice. This further confirmed my theory that the critters came from Ella's school, not Lily's.

My friend recommended using cetaphil to treat the lice, which I like better than using a chemical bath for the third day in a row. She even sent over a spare bottle of cetaphil that she had bought at Costco after her kids had lice the last time. She and I then commiserated on how much laundry we'll be doing all night tonight. I'll be re-washing all the sheets I'd already washed. Sigh. I can't get caught up on regular laundry because of all the lice-related washings.

After dinner, I parked the girls in front of the TV and started in with the cetaphil. They weren't as cooperative as they have been the past two nights. I think they're getting as tired of the treatments as I am. They've now had their hair blow-dried into pretty stiff 1960s-esque hairdos and are headed to bed. We'll be getting up extra early tomorrow to rinse their hair with vinegar and wash out all the cetaphil.

If I see any more lice after this, I may just shave all their hair off.

2 comments:

joanna said...

Greg is a pretty rockin nit picker as well. After my horrible reoccuring bout 11 years ago ... he still asked me to marry him that summer. Whatta guy. I want to say the best treatment I used after the chemicals was olive oil.

Anonymous said...

I have no experience with this, and I hope to keep it that way forever. One of my BFFs went through it with all 4 of her kids, though, and it was awful. Took weeks to get it out of her house. Ugh.

Best of luck to you all. I guess if you shave their heads, it will be cool for the summer, right?