Kaitlyn is taking this whole lice thing better than I expected. Heck, she’s taking it better than I am. I barely slept last night; I kept dreaming that my own hair was filled with crawling lice. In the middle of the night, Kaitlyn called for me to go lay down with her. Bill offered to go instead (he told me this morning he’d figured his shaved head wouldn’t be too attractive to the little buggers), but I went. I don’t want her to think I have a problem with her just because of the lice. But I refused to lay down. I sat up and rubbed her back.
She woke up eager to get rid of the bugs. We went to the pharmacy and chose some lice shampoo. The woman offered me the choice of that or a cream. I’d read online that the creams work better than the shampoos.. but you have to leave that cream on the head for 8 hours. I don’t like the idea of rubbing a pesticide on Kaitlyn’s head then putting her to bed that way. So we went the shampoo route.
You put this stuff on dry hair… which means you’re guaranteed to knot and mat it down…. which makes the subsequent combing with the special comb nearly impossible. Bill came home from work in between meetings to help. He knew that I was completely freaked out at the idea of picking bugs out of anything, let alone out of our daughter’s hair. So I washed her hair (which involved making her sit for 15 minutes with the stuff on her head, doing it’s job.) and got her ready for the combing. Then Bill sat with her and dug in. He immediately pulled a dead louse out. Kaitlyn made me go get her magnifying glass… she wanted an up-close look at what had been making her so itchy. She looked up close at each thing he pulled out. I tried not to squirm and say gross every time, but it was hard.
I have to say, her hair looks better than it’s possibly ever looked… so very thoroughly washed and combed. (She generally has a great aversion to having her head touched in any way and brushes and combs are pretty much off-limits.)
I’m nearly done with all the washing. I do miss my giant washing machine today! I still have to re-vacuum everything. (I stayed up till midnight vacuuming last night.) I have to vacuum my car, too. It probably all needed done anyway.
Then I’m packing a suitcase. We’re still spending our weekend away.
Your daughter certainly has a strong curiosity about stuff. That’s probably good, that she doesn’t shy away easily. Hopefully all this effort will pay off in the elimination of the pests. Have you taken any photos of Bill wearing his new hair style?