Not exactly news, but...

...as it turns out, nit-picking is much more pleasurable when you do it figuratively rather than literally.

The girls came home last week with head lice. This capped off a month in which we passed a strep infection back and forth, my freelance gig petered out, and we drove to Chicago twice. (Okay, the last was not a hardship other than in terms of time and fossil fuels.)

Now, the schools have done a good job of removing the stigma of head lice. You don't get them because you're dirty or poor. So my girls were not at all nonplussed (does this mean they were plussed?). On the other hand, I kind of freaked out. I never had lice as a kid, and didn't know anyone who did; then again, it was stigmatized when I was in school, so it's more likely that no one talked about it. But my own itchy, dry scalp suddenly took on sinister implications as I imagined the vermin crawling, feeding, fornicating, laying their eggs...

Ahem.

Anyway, the school nurse kindly checked my head for me, and checked it again the next day, and I am (knock on wood) lice-free. But because Pink had crawled into bed with me that very morning, and because we'd shared a bed in Chicago (our hosts' bed, of course, and let me apologize to them AGAIN if they should wind up with uninvited guests), I still laundered all my bedding in hot water...along with their bedding and their coats, hats, towels, pillows, and stuffed animals. 

I'm not proud to say that I went to Target immediately after picking them up from school and bought a box of RID. I knew that it was full of pesticides, and I further remember reading that lice were becoming resistant to it. I had heard of alternatives, like slathering on olive oil or mayonnaise or vinegar as though one were dressing a salad. But I panicked. So I got them home, and I treated them with the shampoo, and I used the worthless little plastic nit comb that comes with the RID. I did, thank all that is holy, refrain from spraying their mattresses with the aerosol pesticide, because I knew that couldn't be good.

After the panicked carpet bombing of the vermin, and in the middle of the laundry, I started to research. I contacted Eileen Fishman, a woman I've known for years through Single Mothers by Choice. Eileen left a successful CPA practice in Atlanta to begin a lice-removal company, Elimilice. Eileen has been a life-saver, talking me through the panic and responding patiently to my myriad questions. We're now armed with a natural enzyme product, a high-tech nit comb, and knowledge about how to prevent infestation.

I won't take up space here with the details, because you can visit the Elimilice site for more information. I will, however, share a few prevention tips that I wish the schools would have given out to parents (and yes, I did pass these on the nurse, who is passing them on to other nurses in the district):

1. Don't go crazy with the shampoo. Lice infestation has nothing to do with hygiene; in fact, lice LIKE clean, freshly-washed hair. It's easier to attach the nits to a clean hair shaft. 

2. Use product. Gel, mousse, hair spray, and leave-in conditioner all coat the hair shaft, and lice don't like them. You can use one specifically designed to repel lice (Fairy Tales Hair Care makes a line called Rosemary Repel--it smells rather strongly of citronella, so go easy--and Nit Free makes a mint-based spray), but anything that coats the hair shaft will help deter the little buggers. (Fairy Tales' leave-in conditioner may also be sprayed on the skin to repel mosquitoes, according to the website, but I can't vouch for that.) Both product lines use natural plant oils lab-tested to be offensive to lice.

3. Ponytails are your friends. If you have a girl, or a long-haired boy, get in the habit of pulling the hair back into a tight pony, braid, or bun whenever your child is going to be in a group setting. Then spray it (or use gel). Lice can't fly or jump; they run along the hair. If your child's hair is pulled back, it's less likely to make contact with other kids' hair.

4. No sharing! This is really the only one the schools tell us about. No sharing hats, scarves, headphones, brushes, combs, headbands, etc. In fact, everyone in the family should have his/her own brush and comb. (We were guilty of sharing at our house, and I think I only escaped infestation myself because I use leave-in conditioner.)

Should the above fail and your child come home with a head full of hitch-hikers, I recommend using an enzyme-based product like Fairy Tales' Lice Goodbye and, at the very least, you must invest in the metal Terminator nit comb. The plastic ones that come with the product are worthless. You can use the comb on more than one child as long as it's cleaned thoroughly.

I know this was not easy to read. My head itches as I write it. I hope you'll never need the info, but I had to do my part to combat the staggering amount of misinformation out there in cyberspace. You wouldn't believe the tips people are sharing, up to and including saturating the head with lamp oil. Lamp oil! (Here is where I would like to say something unkind, involving Darwinism, but I will refrain.)