LICE!

Alice, covered in chocolate popcorn with lice-free buns on her head, mid-lice combing.

The day my sister left, I noticed Alice scratching her head.  A lot.  My neighbor had previously informed me that her children had lice so to be aware.  I checked Alice's head but didn't see anything.  But she kept scratching.  So much so that her head was bleeding.  I asked my neighbor to check her head.  Lice.  I had no idea how small they were.

She and I spent the next hour combing knits out of Alice and Henry's hair.  Then Rex came home from school and I checked his head and just about got a louse in my eye--it seemed to jump out of Rex's hair.  So I washed and combed his hair, washed all the sheets, and spent the night combing out my hair.

A week later, as I was tucking Rex into bed, I noticed two more bugs just crawling around his head.  It was little gross.  I kept Rex home from school the next morning and spent an hour tediously rewashing and re-combing Rex's hair.  I dropped him off at school then, because I'd already washed Alice's hair twice with the lice killing shampoo and her hair was still covered in knits, I went to the drug store, bought a different soap and new metal combs then spent the next two hours, combing and re-combing Alice's hair while she and Henry ate chocolate popcorn and watched An Extremely Goofy Movie.  Next was Henry's hair.  Then I rewashed all the sheets, all the blankets, every stuffed animal, all the pillows, all the throw pillows.  I vacuumed the carpet and all the mattresses.  Then I put it all in a big pile in my room and threatened the family not to touch the lice free pile.   After school, I just about buzzed Greg and Rex's heads.  After bedtime I spent another two hours combing (and pulling out half of) my hair.

We're nearly 2 weeks out from that day now.  Any knits left in the house should have hatched by now.  I put the bedspreads and throw pillows back on the beds today.   Henry still asks "Is there lice on this?" before picking up a stuffed animal.  But I think we're getting back to normal.  And while lice isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me, it sure is annoying and time consuming.