A Lousy Christmas

Twas the week before Christmas,

And all through the house,

Not a creature was stirring,

Except for the louse.

With five kids, it was inevitable, right?  

I noticed the nits late Saturday evening.  Sunday morning, we stayed home from church (which, happily, everyone was sad about) and got to work. 

First, we pulled out everything that could be washed - coats, sheets, blankets, pillows, curtains, stuffed animals - and started the days-long washing event. Our dryer was not pleased with this sudden call to overtime duty, and temporarily went on strike, which caused extra delays.

Second, we bagged up anything fabric that couldn't be washed - stockings, decorations, other stuffed animals - and stored them in the garage.

Then we were ready to begin the real fun stuff - treating and combing and combing and combing.  I did a lot of research (and learned a lot of really fascinating information - turns out there are a LOT of lice myths), but mostly we were saved by talking to friends who recently had lice and spent over $500 to be treated by professionals.  Yikes!

The secret is in the comb.  The combs you get in the over-the-counter lice kits are totally useless.  Our friends let us use their effective, metal combs.  We put on some church Christmas movies, and settled in for the long, tedious combing.  

The kids were total troopers.  We probably combed for over five hours.  On the educational side, they learned what it means when people say, "don't be nit-picky" and "go through things with a fine-toothed comb."

******

This experience also reminded me of the time my family had lice when I was a kid.  

I was in middle school.  One day, a call came into my classroom instructing me to come to the main office.  When I arrived, the secretary told me to have a seat.  I complied, and proceeded to wait for more information.  I waited, and waited, and waited.  While I waited, I thought of possible reasons why I had been summoned.  Initially, my theories were mild, "maybe I'm getting picked up early?"

The longer I sat, the more extreme my predictions became, "maybe something happened to one of my siblings?  They're probably hurt!"

Eventually, I convinced myself that one of my parents had died, and the secretaries were making me wait because they just couldn't bear to tell me themselves and were waiting for a relative to arrive to break the tragic news.  

Dramatic much?

When the real reason for my call was finally revealed - the school nurse wanted to check my head for lice - I can't say I was much relieved.  Lice was about as embarrassing an affliction as could come to a middle school child.  

For years afterwards I was overly paranoid about having lice. I avoided getting my hair cut for fear the hair dressers would proclaim in horror, "ugh! You have lice!"

*******

I hope my kids don't come out of this experience with the same level of shame and embarrassment.  We tried to be pretty matter-of-fact about it all, but it's hard to fight the stigma.  

Walking through the grocery store looking for the lice treating products, I'm tried to be discreet, but Bryce kept calling loudly, "maybe the lice stuff is in this aisle!"

Then, when we were checking out, the checker noticed the products and wanted to talk, talk, talk about it, and all I wanted to do was say, "Can you please just close your mouth?!"

Obviously, I'm not over my own childhood issues.
But, at least our house was super-clean for Christmas!