Head Lice

Well, there's no beating around the bush here.  We have HEAD LICE!  Hooray!  So Great.......

Oh how arrogant I have been to believe that this tiny little nightmare won't visit our lovely home. MMMMMMM Humble Pie.

I got the call on Monday, "Bethany, we need you to come and get Evie....she has confirmed head lice."  There are so many things that parents don't want to hear.....I think being patient zero for head lice just about lists up there with explosive diarrhea, or vomit all over the classmates.  Its just gross.  I realized as I hung up the phone and a million thoughts started swirling through my head that the first thing I was feeling was embarrassment.  There is a lot of stigma around head lice.  True....its awful, but its just one of those things that is bound to affect you somehow if you live in a real world and around real kids.  So YES....WE HAVE HEAD LICE!

Well not anymore......I straight up Wonder Woman-ed the crap out of the little buggers and am convinced now that our house is lice free.  They won't dare stay where they aren't welcomed.

But we aren't there yet......

Back to Monday.......I headed to get her at the same time my husband was headed to the airport to go on another business trip. "Keep you head low honey.....and Uber to a Walgreens when you get there!"  We mentally high fived each other, and headed our separate ways.

Head lice has always prompted a sort of fear response in me.  You have to wash EVERYTHING? You have to bag up all the toys that might have touched their heads?  You have to comb through their hair strand by strand? What about couches and stuff that you can't just throw in the washing machine?  Call it ignorance, but anytime I gave thought to all of this I was constantly telling myself....."No worries....won't happen to you." Never in my mind would I have thought that I would have to handle it by myself.  THE WHOLE PROCESS.

I will say it again......I am WONDER WOMAN! And to all the mothers who have gone before, YOU ARE TOO!

So we ran to Walgreens, picked up the most guaranteed of lice chemicals...came home, scoured Evies hair for an hour, and a half tore apart the house, put every blanket, pillow, towel, sheet, decorative pillow, hat, jacket, and item of clothing not washed in piles....I counted 20 piles of laundry. 

The beds were torn down to their roots and those bunk beds?  Yeah....no easy feat by myself.  Lily got home and I spent another hour and a half on her hair.  There were bugs ....... live crawling ones.......shudder.

Again......SOOOOO GREAT!

Once I got the girls slathered up in lice killer I started on my own self.  I have never combed my scalp so hard.  Can you get lice everywhere?  Cause I wanted to comb every inch of my body........Yuck!

By the end of the day my stomach was rolling.  Me and chemicals don't mix.  I realized right then and there that I could not douse my house in flammable lice killer for the next 10 days nor continue to put it on my kids.....I needed something natural.  Essential oils to the rescue!

Tea Tree
Rosemary
Eucalyptus
Lavener
Theives
Peppermint

Lice hate all of them.  You know what else lice hate?  Oily hair.  No kidding....they LOVE clean kids.  Dude.  If that is not life smacking you, I don't know what is.  But I digress...... OLIVE OIL.

So I made 3 spray bottles filled with all those lice repelling oils, and then made a roller bottle of tea tree oil and olive oil for their hair plus a dropper bottle for dousing their hair in oil.

I vacuumed everything and then gave the spray bottles to my kids....Go Nuts girls........

We can spray that stuff all day......my stomach feels great AND my house smells AMAZING!  Take that Lice!

I made it to Tuesday with my arsenal of lice killer. 

Chemicals, oils and wine......because......well.......LICE

It took both days for me to get all the nits (worst word ever) and lice completely removed from their hair.  It was constant....and tiring, but dang it, I DID IT.  I stared that little fear of mine in the face and handled it.  I won't lie....I'm feeling rather accomplished given the fact that I navigated the ordeal solo, had a near catastrophe with the toilet, nearly had a 4 year old expelled from gymnastics, and had to watch Karma punch Evie in the face (more on that later).

It has been something special, but like I told my husband on Monday....."When life gives you head lice........you look it straight in the eye and tell it...NOT TODAY! I GOT THIS!"

I need a nap.