More Bisitors ...

UNCLE, ALREADY!!!!

Okay ... where are the hidden cameras? No ... I'm not friggen around here, peeps! WHERE THA HELL ARE THEY? 

My girls have lice.

I know that doesn't make any of us special. But this infestation that I am battling right now is the THIRD ONE!!!!!! Since December. I am starting to think these are teenage mutant ninja lice or something. I have been (actually quite literally) pulling my damned hair out.

Not sure if any or all of y'all have dealt with the little darlings before, but if you have ever complained about being bored in your life - you'll regret that in a mad hurry after finding lice in your kids' heads. I am exhausted.

I got up yesterday morning and started my first of what feels like 900 loads of laundry. I am on my second bottle of laundry detergent, if that tells you anything. Four beds. Every piece of outdoor clothing ... every towel ... brushes and combs and hair ties, bands, etc all bathed in alcohol. Their stufties are in tied up plastic bags and are in our deep freeze. Every pillow in the house has spent an hour in the dryer on high heat. I have vacuumed as many of the square inches of this 3000 square foot house as I could access. 

I thought (more seriously than I should admit) about shaving all of our heads and then burning the house to the ground. Do you think if I got a jury full of parents that had dealt with these little fuckers before that they would convict me? I really don't think they would. 

The worst part of it is that I am doubting my ability to get rid of them. I mean - how much pesticide can a parent put on their kids' heads before they decide it's too much? These lice treatments are full of some nasty chemicals - and my kids have now been treated FIVE times since the beginning of December. My girlfriend suggested mayonnaise. I'm giving the pesticide until Sunday morning and then I am dousing them in mayo. It is a treatment that moms over the years have apparently given the "thumbs up" to ... GAH! I can't even structure sentences anymore. You have to leave it on their heads for two hours - under a plastic bag and with a towel on top. Then, you wash it out - with cider vinegar and then you can more easily comb the nits out. Then you shampoo the crap out of their hair and hope you can get the rest of the oil out.

Hubs and I had an ugly night Wednesday night. We really don't fight ... not that I can take any credit for that. I can be a sniper. (SNIPER! NO SNIPING!) He usually just doesn't react to me and I eventually smarten up and apologize. Not Wednesday, though. I had discovered the new infestation in the morning on my daily morning lice check. Awesome. I had had plans for that day to get out to the grocery store and get some food into the house (I had cashed in a life insurance policy - the fund portion - and gotten a couple of hundred bucks) ... the food situation had gotten rather dire. So ... since I am the meal planner, it really needed to be me that went for groceries ... and when you have a super tight budget, shopping takes a whole lot longer. I also had a meeting in the afternoon with the CBDC (which is the organization locally that decides if they are going to help me with starting my business. They can approve up to another 40 weeks of help in the form of employment insurance benefits - and they help with the business plan, some training and marketing and such - not to mention, they are attached to a BANK! So if I require seed money, I can make a case through them ... suffice it to say, it was a meeting I dared not miss.) 

So ... I went out to the drug store and got a double treatment, brought it home and asked my husband to treat them and wash their beds. I would be home later and would take over then. Now, he was working so I knew his time would be divided ... but I thought he had washed the beds. I got home at noon and proceeded to put away the groceries, get myself ready and flew out to my meeting in a cloud of haste. 

When I returned, I had a ream of paperwork that needed to be completed and I was also working on the final presentation for the class that I have been attending for the past 15 weeks. It was due Thursday. I also had started the evening meal. The laundry was going, so as I had stated, I thought the beds were under control (you can see where this is going, right?). The rest was going to have to wait for the next morning as the business is really of more importance and since my EI is about to run out, time is of the essence.

Evening meal completed, I cleaned up while Hubs worked away in his office ... attempting to make some money so his wife will sleep again ... then I had to do the evening check on their heads. Live bugs! I found more live bugs! My first reaction was that he didn't do the treatment properly. (I know ... I know ... I can't help myself .... I'm a do it yourselfer) I treated the offending scalp AGAIN. Then, I realized that he had only done the pillow cases of Stretch's bed. This was about the time that Stretch was declaring Shorty couldn't share her bed that night. So ... neither of the actual bed clothes has been washed AND Shorty's hasn't been touched. And, it is bedtime. I apparently made quite a face. It was not a conscious thing, it just happened and I said "you didn't wash the whole bed?" with what was later described as a "you stupid fucking idiot" look on my face. 

He snapped. He NEVER snaps. I'm the snapper... and I was already snappin'! There is only so much pressure you can put on something before it either is crushed or it explodes. We both exploded. My kids have never seen anything like that before. One of them asked me if we were going to get a divorce. I told her we couldn't afford one, so not to worry... probably not the best thing to tell a child, upon further reflection. I explained that we had been worried about silly grown up stuff and with the lice coming back it just made us act like crazy people ... and that while Mom and Dad were behaving like we didn't like each other much, it was just the upset of the situation that was causing it. 

Things went mostly back to normal the next day. Not that our current normal is all that great. Kids pick up the undercurrents pretty easily.

On the bright side, I spoke with the school's principal this morning and shared my concerns that I was ineffective against this infestation and she gave me a wonderful gift - an explanation. Apparently one of Shorty's close buddies (the very one that had been here for a play date on Tuesday ... you know, the day before I noted the most recent infestation) has a chronic case of lice. The principal told me there were issues with confidentiality, but she said she had to tell me to maybe knock off the play dates with that particular child - who is such a sweetie-pie and I feel terrible. I have heard things in the past from my kids about the home life there ... doesn't sound ideal. She told me she has actually never seen a case quite so bad with the lack of action by the parents. I know she shouldn't have told me, but I am damned grateful! Guess it pays to volunteer at the school ... you do get a few perks that way.

As to the business ... I was underwhelmed by the guy I met with. Not a really impressive person. I do not understand how some people get these jobs ... it kinda blows my mind. Anyhoo ... things are under way. I have to get him my docs today. Once he gets everything he needs from me, it goes off to the first of two boards for approval. If they like my idea and my skill sets, then it goes to the government for the Self Employment Benefit approval ... which means I can officially stop looking for work and focus all of my attention on building my business. All money that is made by the business can be kept, or put back into the business. I don't have to deduct anything from the EI benefit. That would be a very good start.

So if you have a moment ... send a little whammy out to the powers that be ... this would go a very long way to helping me dig myself out of this colossal mess I am buried under.

Smooches.

DDD