Uninvited Guests

I have been in the parenting business for over 14 years now. I have seen my fair share of the unpleasantries of childhood....... broken bones, nasty stomach bugs, head wounds, broken teeth, a host of ugly viruses.... even a parasite or two..... but there has been one particular common childhood menus that I have hoped with all my being that we would never have to come up against..... and through luck and fate, managed to successfully ward off...... until a few weeks ago.

A few weeks ago one of my deepest darkest parental fears came to a horrific reality. We got............LICE!

Yes... the day before the last day of school one member of the Fab Five was scratching and scratching and scratching and I took a little look(the same look I have taken thousands of times before that have always proven a false alarm) .... and there they were. I knew deep in my heart that there was no way we would make it through rearing five children without coming upon this catastrophic invasion of tiny villains and there they were. Smaller and far, far grosser than I had even imagined. It was the thing nightmares are made of. An army of evil beasts lurking in a vast ocean of hair. An army that would have to be eliminated, one evil beast at a time while the vast ocean of hair(and the angry little itchy person it was attached to)wiggled and complained for an indefinite amount of time. And if that was not enough, there was the other 6 vast oceans of hair in the house that I had not even checked yet!

Oh the horror!

Oh the panic!

Like I said before, the discovery of these "uninvited guests" was the day before the last day of school. The afflicted child would never get over the disappointment of missing the last day of school and all the fun and exciting things that came with it so I knew that time was of the essence.... I had to get all the bugs out ASAP so that said child could go to school the next day.

And so... the genocide began.

It was gross.

It was horrible.

I will leave out the heinous and hideous details in an effort to preserve your innocence in case you are lucky enough to have never gone face to face with these vicious beasts. If you have had the great misfortune of picking up these uninvited guests... well then... you know of the heinous and hideous details of which I speak. But I will say, it was one of the most tedious and time consuming parental duties ever. It took six solid hours to complete the mass murder and extraction of the fleet of invaders that first night(on just the one child!). That child also received a major hair cut to aid in the removal process.

After the first six hours were over, it was on to the other six heads in the house, on which we discovered several smaller armies of these invaders. And so we continued to wash, pick, scrub and cut heads of hair into the wee hours of the night. And topped the exciting experience off with about 700 loads of laundry and 45 hours of vacuuming carpets and furniture.

If you have seen our family in the recent past you may have noticed our new fancy haircuts. Including mine....... which really is a story in and of itself.

After all the children were clear of the bugs, I forced my sweet husband to check my head. And sure enough... I was playing host for these terrible creatures as well. At this point, worn down physically and emotionally by the events of the last 12 hours, it seemed like a good idea to have Roger, "Just cut my hair short" to make the removal process easier. And being the brave man he is..... he cut my hair.

Short.

Very short.

Perhaps... a little too short.

Again, I will spare you the details of the hours that followed that haircut as hopefully you have never and will never have to experience the extreme marital strain that comes from your spouse holding scissors(still laced with your once beautifully long hair) and apologizing profusely as you stare teary eyed at your painfully short and lopped sided hair-do.

In the end... it all worked out. My panic stricken and apologetic husband sent me to our local hipster barber shop first thing in the morning and they salvaged what was left of my hair and transformed it into what turned out to be a rather cute little do. And thus, my marriage remains intact.

Well, like many other ugly circumstances our family has been up against...... we persevered and stumbled our way through it. Tougher and wiser for the wear, I suppose(or at least with a slightly more developed sense of humor). We now have put this unsavory experience behind us...... for the most part. There are still some emotional scars for sure. My heart skips and stomach drops every time I see one of my kids even look like they might be itching their head. And, while, our house has been bug-free for a month now, I still find myself uncontrollably(albeit psychosomatically) itchy as I type this.

You are probably itchy now too. Sorry.