Seven Quick Takes: Icky Bloody Weary Rainy Feast of St. Augustine Edition

1. Last night one of my boys brought me a small bug on his finger. He said, "My head has been itching and what do you suppose this is?"

I said very calmly, "It might be a head louse. Go flush it and then let's take a look at your head." And though I have never dealt with head lice before, I was pretty sure that I was seeing nits clinging to the hair at the nape of his neck. I scooped up the baby and left the oldest in charge of his brothers, and went to Walgreens to buy a nit comb.

2. I was driving home thinking about the blog post I would write. It would be called "Shriek" and it would contain many ~~shudders~~ because BLECH. Parasites! Blood-sucking parasites IN MY HOUSE and ON MY CHILDREN. Sometimes when I am calmly doing something that I don't want to do calmly, I console myself by imagining the bloggy shrieks I will shriek after the fact. As I was pulling into the driveway, my phone rang. I couldn't get to it in time but I saw that it was the boys calling me. "More Lego squabbles," I thought to myself.

3. Except HA! It was not Lego squabbles. I only wish it had been Lego squabbles. Joe greeted me saying "Mom! Mom! Marty's bleeding all over and Alex is trying to do first aid and we don't know if he needs to go to the hospital." Pete the 4yo, who has been ornery lately though never a sociopathic kind of ornery, got mad at Alex and threw a flashlight at his head. (!) He missed and hit Marty instead. (!!) Bleeding ensued. A great deal of bleeding. (!!!)

4. I may speak to the Boy Scouts about their first aid training, because my oldest son (who just earned his first aid merit badge) was not quite sure what to do when confronted with an actual wound spouting actual blood. He had found his triangle bandage and draped it fetchingly about his brother's head like a peasanty mantilla. "I'm trying to apply direct pressure, Mom," he shouted. I do appreciate the effort but I will need to remind him at some point that direct pressure means pressure applied directly. The "rest the bandage atop the wound and then step back to wring hands in alarm" approach is rather less effective in stanching the flow of blood.

5. Right at this moment my husband called to say he wasn't going to be able to catch his usual bus and by the way how were the head lice? I said I was less worried about the head lice than the scalp turned spigot pouring gouts of blood into our son's hair. (I am exaggerating; see above re: bloggy relief.) I said I'd call him back when I knew more, because we might need to pick him up and go to urgent care for stitches. Very calmly, I found the cut and decided it would not need to be sutured; very calmly, I administered Tylenol and ice and washed the blood out of his hair.

Very irascibly (alas), I shouted at the non-injured boys who had decided that baby Stella could wander unsupervised, sampling the delectable chokables they'd left scattered attractively across the living room floor. "Is she okay, Mom?" Marty whimpered when I came back to the bathroom. "I would hate it if my baby sister choked to death and it was my fault." I told him she was fine and it wasn't his fault. I told him he could tell it wasn't a big worry because I had yelled, and if she'd been in real trouble I would have stayed calm. 

Which is unfortunate. If I can stay calm for the big things I ought to be able to stay calm for the small stuff too.

6. After a long night in which I kept jolting awake, thinking, "Aaaaccckkkk, head lice" and itching violently but apparently psychosomatically, I did another comb-through this morning. I had a horrifying thought: lice feed on blood. I parted the hair around his injured scalp with many an anticipatory twitch, imagining a little platoon of blood-suckers drinking at the trough [shudder shudder SHUDDER]. Thankfully, they like it fresh and not congealed and I spotted no little scurrying six-legged friends. I called the school to ask about what I should do; they said to send him and let the nurse check him out. She was very helpful; she recommended a conservative approach, which suits me just fine. (Conservative as in minimizing children's exposure to toxins, not conservative as in slash and burn.)

7. I am offering up these trials for a particular intention today. I have two long-haul prayer requests, two places where I have been waiting a long time for God's intervention. Over the summer, the two have become intertwined in an unexpected way. (Vague, vague -- don't you hate it when bloggers are vague?) For years I have invoked the intercession of St. Augustine, whose feast day is today. Would you join me? And if you have any lice tips, lay them on me.

More quick takes here.

Comments

[Karen]

Lice tips - skip the poison and go for physical removal. We used a combination of Burts Bees conditioner (because it is thick) mixed with baking soda, plus nit comb and lots of time in front of the TV to keep the kid calm. I only had one with nits, but her hair was thick and down to her waist. Not fun.

After the comb through we washed with shampoo, and applied tea tree oil to her scalp. This was an error - it is too strong and irritated her skin. A better choice would have been to mix tea tree oil with conditioner and apply that. I opted for that approach later in the year when there was another lice scare at our school. I left the conditioner/tea tree oil in her hair for a couple of days before shampooing again.

Tea tree oil is a nice lice repellant, and you can get it at your local pharmacy.

You should also launder the sheets and pillows in hot water. If there are any soft toys that the kids sleep with, put them in a garbage bag for a couple of days. Lice can't live too long without blood, so if you isolate the items that might harbor the little beasties they will die in about 48 hours.

[Chelsea]

This post was hilarious!!! I'm trying to imagine your house and it seems like this would be a great scene in a movie.

[Sarah @ This Heavenly Life]

I'm sorry to be laughing at your misfortunes, really I am. But you present them in such a way that begs me to join in with laughter. Which I have. Again, sorry. Mostly because I have no lice tips due to not being part of this mothering gig for enough years yet to have been exposed. So when I start lamenting our own lice infestation, feel free to laugh. I hope your little crew of bloody kiddos is clean and nit free soon.

[Tracy]

No lice tips. In 15 1/2 years of mothering I have not had to deal with them yet. (and why do I have an almost uncontrollable urge to find some wood and knock on it now? shudder. shriek.)

First aid and boy scouts - I have to laugh. But then I remember how earnestly my then 12 yo told me that he had learned first aid at scout and yet, he seemed to be a bit... clueless in some areas. I suggested to the assistant scoutmaster (my husband) that they needed to review some things.

Somehow after a few years, he is now truly proficient in first aid and emergency preparedness.

Hope all turns out well for your long haul prayer requests. I will pray.

[gina]

Thank you for reminding me of the feast day....
We'll be praying for you...

[Salome Ellen]

Vaseline! Just goop it on, covering all hair, and leave it on for 24 hours. It can be covered with plastic bags or shower caps to protect furniture and pillows. The lice (and nits) suffocate. Then lice comb. Or, with boys, you can just do a buzz-cuts-all-round. Hot water for linens, and a new vacuum bag before and after THOROUGH vacuuming. You'll hate it, but your house will be pristine...

[JeCaThRe]

Cetaphil, nice and non-toxic.

http://blogs.webmd.com/healthy-children/2006/02/got-lice.html

[pnuts mama]

your last two sentences on this #5 as well- me, too! weird.

[theBarbieDoll]

So if both my children girls with LONG hair have lice along with myself, and we just returned from six weeks of a very stressful separation from my husband, and my excellent vacuum cleaner motor blows up and extinguishes last night, then what? I can't tell which urgency is most important at this point. Comb nits since we all have been treated? Keep washing laundry in HOT water? Go fix the vacuum? Which has the greatest return on investment? The only thing I can think of is to pray. And thank God that I have a washer/dryer (first week) instead of the laundromat of the past few years and an amazingling patient 15-year-old who takes the time to comb her little sister and shrink wrap bugs in packing tape.