Bilingual life and more

or … how to kill lice!

Yes, our girls got head lice. They did not get them in school or camp, but from a friend they were soooooooo excited to see after 5 weeks in Germany. We had a fantastic time there, but they did miss their friends at the end. So, we get back and get one lousy reception (I had to get that pun in!)

But, how do we get rid of these pesky, little parasites? After being alerted about a week ago I read everything I could find. I also told friends, who had been over so that they could make sure they had not taken any unwelcome guests home with them or on vacation.

Emily had nits (eggs) and a few lice, but Michael, Anna and I had been spared. Emily had not gotten to the itchy-head stage yet, so it was pretty early in the game. Poisonous pesticide and diligently combing through her hair daily, washing everything she had touched and might have touched, vacuuming every bare space in the house was going to do the trick … or so I thought. A week later, another treatment was going to kill any new critters. That would have been the picture book case of head-lice.

Hm, maybe we should have isolated Emily from everybody and everything to make sure she does not get in touch with anybody – literally – because when I checked Anna yesterday, there it was, a nit (egg) and one adult specimen running around between her curls. So, her lovely curls were treated to a poisonous marinade, too. You might realize that I am not a big fan off dousing my dear little girls heads in pesticide, but I found myself yesterday almost buying a pesticide spray to spray on anything in sight. I decided to go the nicer route. Anna and Emily are now sleeping on mattresses in our room and their rooms are off limits for a few days. Then, their rooms will be critter free like the rest of the house. Michael and I don’t have any. Michael’s short hair is easy to look through in about 30 Minutes, but it took Michael at least 1 1/2 hours to go through my long, thick hair. I think that was the first time EVER he cursed my thick, long hair! One good thing came out of that – he pulled out any grey hairs he could find, which, thankfully, were not many.

One way to get rid off these pests on your things is, to put stuff in the freezer that is not washable. So, we have kids jewelery, pillows and baby dolls in the freezer. Because pillows take quite a bit of space, the freezer outside popped open, and we just found out this morning.

So, dinner was whateverwasthawedinthefreezerandstilledible crock pot soup and dessert apple strudel. YUMMY!!! A cleaned out freezer and a great dinner are certainly a welcome side effect of the lousy mayhem at our house lately.