Lice!

Can't believe I missed recounting this memorable chapter in the story of Lovebo. At the beginning of November we were staying with my parents overnight before one of Beckett's hockey games in Ithaca. In the morning we all went to the game, and when Beckett was changing in the locker room after, I was tousling Reed's hair, which I do fairly frequently, and saw bugs crawling in his hair. Bugs. Like lightning-bug size bugs.

Phase one: complete freakout. Jeff goes to the store to buy the lice cream and comb, I put all the kids in the bath, contemplate shaving everyone's hair (including mine).

Phase two: 90 minutes of picking out nits from Reed's hair. Performed in shifts by Joan, Jeff and Bryn. Theo, Beckett, Reed and I use the lice cream rinse. Many many nits are found in Reed's hair, and probably a dozen adult lice. A few adult lice are found on Beckett. Reed appears to be the vector.

Phase three: Doing all the laundry in Joan and Stu's house, spraying everything with permethrin spray, texting Mama Sara for advice and mostly for reassurance.

Phase four: Informing Chase's mom, who Theo has been with for 24 hours for the longest and most fun sleepover in the entire world, that my other kids have lice. I felt pretty awful about it until Chase's mom was exceptionally kind and gracious. By pure luck, she is a nurse and used to do school lice checks so she went out and bought the lice kit and put Theo in the bath with the cream rinse and combed his hair, finding no lice. Calm begins to take over

Phase five: Doing all the laundry in our house, including all bedding and stuffed animals, and spraying the entire house with permethrin. And continuing to comb and comb and comb.

Phase six: Fighting with Reed's school nurse. Apparently the new trend in school lice policy is not to do a damn thing about it. They don't want to stigmatize kids for having lice, or restrict kids on coming to school when they have it. Unfortunately this means that Reed comes home with more adult lice the next day. And the next. And the next.

Phase seven: Nine days after initial treatment, all the kids (but especially Reed) have tiny living nymph lice. Complete freak-out ensues until I realize I can retreat them, that this is the natural life cycle of lice, and that of course we missed some nits but retreating will completely quell the problem. All the kids are re-treated.

We've now been lice-free for about 7 weeks. I know way way more about lice and lice treatment now than I did. When you start talking about lice, you realize how many other people have had it, which is very reassuring. This is not something I had as a kid and so I didn't know much about it, but I'm confident we'll get it again but we'll be ready.