A Totally Spontaneous Spa Day

We got LICE! I hate to admit it so publicly but we did, and it was a rather adventurous experience. I am so grateful for a good neighbor who showed me a great remedy that was natural and safe and totally effective. Here we are almost two weeks from the day I discovered it and we are all fine, and it didn't recur. I hope we never have to go through it again, but if we do at least I know just what to do.

It started out with the girls itching their scalps incessantly. I thought maybe with all the swimming their scalps were drying out and getting dandruff. So, I went out and got some dandruff shampoo. I wish I could remember how long they'd been itching, and I felt like such a dumb young mom who knows nothing when I discovered just how bad they had the lice. They were big old buggers that I could see crawling through their hair when I took a moment to really look. I gasped at first glance because it surprised me, which was another dumb young inexperienced mom thing to do because it freaked the girls out and they started screaming and crying at the thought of having bugs in their hair.

After much research and effort to get a few things that we'd need to get this situation under control, I went to work treating everyone in the house even if they didn't appear to have it. I never saw any on the boys or myself or Steve. Let me just say I didn't stop until 12:30am and then it took me until after one to wind down enough to fall asleep. One of my biggest concerns was to get it taken care of in quick time since we were days away from leaving for our BIG 3 1/2 week Utah trip. I didn't want to bring it with us, but I also didn't see having to devote a whole day to that! I was trying to be organized and ahead and had been working to prepare for this big trip all week. This day totally threw me off but oh well.

The girls didn't love the process since it required washing and letting the solution sit three different times. Since it wasn't a harmful chemical solution I let it sit much longer than the instructions suggested to be doubly sure it did the job. The cool thing about the stuff i used was it didn't only kill love lice, but it also killed the eggs or "nits". To be extra sure we really got the eggs Steve and I used the infamous lice combs for 2 1/2 hours (we did this while watching a movie to keep everyone occupied) one everyone's head. I'd like to give a big shout out to ClearLice.com it is totally legitimate and did the job beautifully.

In letting the solution sit for so long I got the bright idea (total inspiration from on high) to make it fun since the girls felt so bad about it all so I thought why not make it a Spa Day. When we went to Sally Beauty to get the lice comb I let them pick out some new nail polish colors. Then when we started the process we did masks, then painted toes, then painted finger nails. We also conditioned our skin too, they started to finally smile instead of just be horrified and bumbed to have to be home all day doing that.

I had totally forgotten about me having a mask on like the girls, who'd I'd long since rinsed off and done a million other things since, like wash the sheet and towels and clothes. I heard Kyle waking up and thought I'd go greet him and ask him if he wanted to join us and wear a really cool cap. He took one look at me and shrieked and ran as fast as he could as far away from me as he could get. Then I remembered :) Was I that bad? ThenI remembered I had a bag on my head too, so I guess that was pretty scary. He would come near me until I'd rinsed the mask off and showed him how the girls too had bags on their heads. Luckily Kyle was willing to go along with being treated, especially when I reminded him it would keep the bugs out of his hair.