The Dreaded "L" word.....

No silly, not Love. LICE

If you have never had to deal with the disastrously little bugs, pray that you never have to.

And if you have, you know what I'm talking about.

When my three boys were much younger (one was in grade school, one was in preschool, and the other was in daycare) those horrid little creatures decided to come and visit. And they liked at our house so much that they decided to extend their vacation at our house for many months.

It was very stressful for me...I felt like such a bad mom. How could this happen to MY children. They clean their rooms, I wash their clothes, they take baths, etc etc.

Usually, if your kids are in school or daycare, they are susceptible to picking lice up from other kids and it will have nothing to do with how clean your house is or your child.

After months of combing and picking and trying different brands of lice remedies, I was finally able to get rid of these things by doing the following:

--- wash ALL bed linens
--- throw away any brushes that the child has used
--- spray cloth furniture and mattresses (I had to use an over the counter spray)
--- I used mayonaise on each childs' head and then wrapped it in plastic overnight.
Rinsed it out the next day and combed the hair thoroughly. You need to check
your child's head every day to get rid of these little buggers.

O.K., you're probably wondering why I am posting about lice. Let me say, it wasn't what I had intended to originally post.

My stepdaughter was here over the weekend until yesterday. I had noticed that she had been scratching her head...ALOT. I asked her about it and she said that it had been itching for over a week now. Uh Oh!

Sure enough, I took her over to a sunny window where I could see better. At first I didn't see anything because she has such thick hair. When I checked around her hair line and behind the ears - BINGO...there they were.

I found out that there had been a math night at school involving various games, one of which involved wearing different hats that the teacher had for the game. I think she probably got it that way, because there were several children taking turns wearing the hats.

Anyway, I have thrown away the brushes that she used and am in the process of washing all the linens in hot water (I usually wash in cold).

The only thing that worries me is that I was using the same brush that she was, so I need to keep a close eye on my own hair, Ugh!