It has been almost two years since Child No.3 brought lice into our home and infected everyone in it. The scars might never heal although it did lead to a good blog post. Since then there is the continual fear that they might return. The fear that is that they might return and end up in Child No.3's mother's hair again forcing her to face her worst nightmare: relying on me to clean her up.
That fear had led, for so long, to all children's hair being platted before going to school. But these summer holidays, we let Child No.3 run free. And sadly, being a sociable child, it only took one interaction with someone in the last few weeks to catch some of those hair hoppers.
So they are back and this time there's ... fortunately less. Unfortunately, they hit two members of the household. Child No.3 and, sigh, her mother. Not fun at all. Last time I lamented a delousing service that could come in and deal with this. Turns out that there is such a service in Australia: the National Head Lice Treatment Centre. Sounds official really. I was ready to drop the $75 per head right then and there but we decided to see what we could do ourselves. Apparently, I was not completely useless and was preferable to a professional service.
But we were able to enlist Child No.1 to do the microscopic screening of what was coming out of people's hair (we were all checked). A few like that to the left. But lots of dead eggs thankfully and lots of what appears to be food in the hair of Child No.2; which is a bit of a worry. I hope the food isn't catching.
That fear had led, for so long, to all children's hair being platted before going to school. But these summer holidays, we let Child No.3 run free. And sadly, being a sociable child, it only took one interaction with someone in the last few weeks to catch some of those hair hoppers.
So they are back and this time there's ... fortunately less. Unfortunately, they hit two members of the household. Child No.3 and, sigh, her mother. Not fun at all. Last time I lamented a delousing service that could come in and deal with this. Turns out that there is such a service in Australia: the National Head Lice Treatment Centre. Sounds official really. I was ready to drop the $75 per head right then and there but we decided to see what we could do ourselves. Apparently, I was not completely useless and was preferable to a professional service.
But we were able to enlist Child No.1 to do the microscopic screening of what was coming out of people's hair (we were all checked). A few like that to the left. But lots of dead eggs thankfully and lots of what appears to be food in the hair of Child No.2; which is a bit of a worry. I hope the food isn't catching.