Head Lice - is that two words or one?

One of the joys of having children is going through the list of childhood illnesses and checking them off one by one. You do so with little or no real discomfort because you know that most of them occur once and then you are done. Hell these days most of them are cured before they get them as long as you make sure their immunizations are up to date. So, unlike our parents parents we get check off the potential illnesses without giving them much thought.

There is one childhood "illness" that we always hope our child will not get. There is not immunization for this one and short of making them live in a bubble you can't prevent it. HEAD LICE!

Between O and I we have 3 children (I use this term loosely because my kids are 14 and 18). They come and go from their perspective parents houses and stay with us when it is our turn. Well since May we seem to adopted a few additional unwanted kids. These freaking little bugs will not go away. We were pretty sure that O's daughter and my daughter were handing them back and forth over the summer. We finally had a clean bill of health on both of them and quit worrying. Never gave it another thought...

Until about 4 days ago when Fi started itching her head again. We peeked at her scalp and it looked fine. Well tonight was bath night and while doing the "did you wash your hair good enough" inspection O found yet another creepy crawly. It is terrible. Poor Fi is so upset and the rest of us, even though we all seem to be clear of them, are suffering from phantom itching!

I am not sure how I made it through the whole summer without getting them. Sheer luck? Hair dye - the ultimate killer? Too much hair to detect them? I don't know but I am itching from head to toe right now and it is making me crazy! This is the 8th time we have had to do the floor to ceiling clean, bag up the soft toys, wash all the bedding. Ugh! I am so done with them. Someone please make them go away!