The Singular of Lice is Louse

The things I never wanted to learn first-hand are proving to come through all kinds of parenting experiences. Got a message on my cell phone from Zac's teacher. He has lice. I have no idea how they got there but got itchy just thinking about it. Come to think of it, just the other day Jadon told me his friend M had the answer as to why Jadon might be itchy all the time. "He told me that maybe I have lice and that's why my head itches a lot." And I thought it was just Jadon's nature to itch (and if you know him, you will also know that is a perfectly sound statement).

So I picked Jadon up from school, told him we couldn't go over to Papa's (didn't want to contaminate the cousins) and he was sad. Luckily a Slurpee made it all better. Took the boys home, inspected Jadon and he had more live ones than Zac. Spent literally hours treating their hair, cutting Zac's (it was in his eyes and needed a cut anyway), then took their hair to a fine tooth comb. Those things don't even look like they have space between the teeth at first glance.

Once Eddie got home, we vacuumed EVERYWHERE including all the furniture, washed EVERYTHING and even threw every pillow in the dryer. We sprayed our bed, car and furniture with anti-lice stuff. Good times.

I told Eddie it might be a good idea to treat our own hair with the lice shampoo just to be safe so we did. And while I combed through my hair, three came out. Yes, three lice. I don't even want to know what else is in this mop top of mine. For a split second I contemplated shaving it off a la Brittney Spears sans mental breakdown. One day I will, that and have dreads. But today was not the day.

I'm deciding whether or not this was worse than teething. Potty training remains at the top of the Parenting Black List but this lice thing might be a close second.

I feel dirty.