The lice story

So; our van was all packed up and we were ready to leave on our big trip early in the morning. We wanted to be in Oxford, OH around lunch time. 

As the boys were going to sleep and Courtney and I were packing up the last, I noticed that they were itching their heads in their sleep – a lot. I realized later that I had noticed them itching before, but with all the mosquitoes, I figured they had been bit. 

On a hunch, I walked over to the bed and checked August’s hair. Oh. My. God. He had lice! We were about to leave in the morning to drive for 4 days, stay with friends (the first night) and our children had lice! 

Courtney ran over to the drugstore and bought all the strongest products he could find, and I – I woke up the boys and started combing. It was 4 am on the night before our big road trip, and we were awake, treating our boys for lice. I treated myself as well, just to be safe. Abraham practically slept through the whole thing, and the boys got through it because they knew they could sleep in the car the next day. Courtney and I got through it because we can’t stand lice. When we were finished, there were no live lice left, although probably a few nits. We warned our friends who made sure to wash all our bedding well after we left. 

When we got to Atlanta we combed through everyone’s heads and found some nits and a couple of more lice – tiny and newly hatched - and went through a second treatment. 

A week and a half later, Courtney went through his hair and found a whole bunch, so we treated everyone again. 

Every treatment involved me washing all our sheets, bedding, and spraying anything that didn’t fit in the washer with anti-lice spray, and combing – lots and lots of combing. 

Then yesterday we went through everyone’s hair again, and guess what? There were a couple of newly hatched lice in everyone’s hair, including my own! Aaahh!! We’ve probably spent well over $300 on lice treatment products and followed the instructions to the point, but still there are lice?! I’m starting to think that the lice shampoo and the crème treatment are just very expensive bad hair products! So this time, we did it the old fashioned way – the way we got rid of lice the one time we had it before, in Cairo, where we didn’t have access to fancy lice treatments: the helmet. You cover your entire hair in conditioner, like a helmet, and leave it on for 3-4 hours, preferably until it almost dries, and then you comb it out. The lice and nits are stuck in the conditioner. 

This really should be it. If we go through everyone’s hair in a couple of days and still find lice, I’m buying a hair straightener to use on everyone. Surely the lice will not be able to withstand such heat?

Can you believe this?! What’s your secret recipe? Brush cuts are not an option.