Eight kids with HEAD LICE or The Battle of The Bugs

The school called.

They had been sending notes home about ANOTHER outbreak of head lice but of course I was confident that we had never had and would never would get lice.

The secretary asked me to check Rachel's head because she was in morning kindergarten and the head check was that afternoon.

I laughed and said, "I just washed her hair last night; I really don't think she has any but I'll check anyway."

I called Rachel over to a bright window, parted her hair and peered closely at her scalp.

 After literally screaming, I picked up the phone again only to hear the secretary say, " I guess that is a 'yes', Mrs. Juneau."

I was mortified; Rachel's head was crawling with lice and one daughter saw a bug crawling on her forehead in a mirror at school!! I get itchy just remembering  Lice Week. Of course the school assured me that lice like clean hair but that did not reassure me at all. In the end, all the other siblings at least had a couple of nits and no one could return to school until the were nit free.

 Do you have any idea the work that faced us?

In those days we were told to wash all bedding, favourite stuffed animals, throw pillows, afghans, towels, combs, hairbrushes and hair accessories, hats, mitts, scarves , sweaters, clothes, pyjamas and housecoats and finally both sets of snowsuits (the good set and the farm set).  In addition , it was necessary to vacuum chesterfields, chairs, rugs and ANYTHING else that a head could touch. Those directions amounted to almost 60 loads of laundry! I filled a bathtub almost to the ceiling with stuff that needed to be washed.

I swear, I do not exaggerate but that was not the hard part. Ten heads had to be washed in awful smelling shampoo. Then every nit combed out with vinegar and a special fine-tooted steal comb. You know the saying, 'oh quit nit -picking'? Well, it takes on a whole new meaning after you've tried to pull every sticky nit off  single strands of hair on ten heads.

So what does a slightly paranoid, overwhelmed mother do? She arranges everyone according to age and size to simultaneously check each others'  head. At least that helped with the more obvious eggs.

However, a wonderful gift was given to me. A couple kids became expert nit pickers. The best nit pickers were the detail oriented offspring, who were slightly obsessive-compulsive; I grew to treasure that particular weakness during the next couple of weeks because one overlooked nit could explode into hundreds of offspring in a matter of days. Now that could cause a nightmare!

I wished I could say that that was the one and only "Battle of the Bugs" our family endured but kindergarten classes are notorious hotbeds for lice; the kids are always head to head examining something utterly fascinating with friends.

At least the next time lice hopped onto a Juneau head we were battle ready.