Arrgh! Head Lice!

Yeah nothing like starting a Blog off with a bang, Huh? Yup, first thing this morning as I was stroking my youngest's head I saw it...a tiny black moving thing...I felt a chill "Oh, oh," was all I said as I shot an upset look at my husband. He knew even though it's been a couple of years since we've had any lice in the house. I checked further and sure enough she has head lice...my poor little almost three your old daughter. What a day I've had so far because of it...almost 3 year olds DO NOT like to sit still whilst their Mommy combs thru their hair over and over again. I was also forced to cut some of her hair off, something I have avoided doing to the back of her hair since she was born. Of course she's still adorable and the new shorter hair combs more easily...so I guess that should be my silver lining huh?

I am livid at whoever let their child come to the public Childminding at my YMCA swarming with head lice...because the kid must have been. The large majority of what I found on the wee one's head were bugs not eggs, some of them quite large, I'm certain she must have gotten them just yesterday, right after I washed her hair.

Some information on head lice(for those of you who don't know);

First of all they really aren't a huge deal. We as humans just don't like having bugs in our hair...not ones we can see anyway. They won't make you sick.

Head Lice aren't a sign that you have dirty kids. In fact they much prefer kids heads that are nice and clean. The best protection from head lice is just not washing the hair so often(I refuse to wash until my children's hair is visibly in need of a washing-which isn't very often at all). There are natural oils on a person's head that is very good protection from lice.

Head lice CANNOT JUMP; they climb along the hair shaft to get from head to head...to pass head lice you need to have a nice prolonged(several seconds) firm contact between two heads OR be unlucky enough to get a hair with an egg on it mixed up with the hair on your head(hence the no sharing hats and combs rule).

A lot of head lice are now resistant to the regular treatments. Just putting Nix on your kid's head and running a nit comb thru their hair is not going to cut it with bugs that can shake off the toxins in the products that we normally pick up at our local drug stores. Some people swear by putting a lot of olive oil or baby oil on your child's head and then a shower cap(or firmly tied plastic bag) and keeping that on for long enough to deprive the bugs of air and kill them. I've never tried it myself.

The best way to get rid of head lice and eggs is one at a time. Yup there really is no lazy way out. You have to go over and over the kids head with a regular fine tooth comb and look at every hair shaft and the scalp and pick the eggs and bugs off by hand. Then re-treat at the 7 day mark. You're looking at 2 weeks of at least once daily head checks and pickings, because you never find all of them at one sitting.

End of info.

So that's been my day. It started out with such promise too; with my man making me breakfast and the prospect of a nice long session at my computer. Nowhere to go and nothing to do. So much for that.

Cass :)