That's right, we had to shave every one's hair because Porter came home with head lice! Arrrgh! Tuesday night (while Andersen was on a 24hr shift at the hospital) I was drying off Porter's head after his bath and spotted something. Upon closer examination I discovered that he was loaded with eggs so I ran to my computer, hoping that it was just debris that I hadn't washed out properly, and found this website http://www.headlice.org/faq/notnit.htm and sure enough he had "nits." So then I had to haul everyone back into the bathroom to check for lice. Somehow Campbell had managed to avoid the lice, but Mason wasn't so lucky. So out come the clippers, it is now 9pm and everyone starts whining that they are tired, but the ordeal has just begun. First up is Mason, "because he is smaller and doesn't know what's going on," I explain to Porter. Mason HATES having his head shaved so he screams and wrestles me the entire time, but I found 2 lice in his hair. Then I had to hold his head in my lap while I picked out all of the nits, which is a long a torturous process. Poor little guy fell asleep standing up with his head in my lap. Once he was clear, I laid him down on the couch which I had cleaned earlier that day by some divine inspiration. Then I started on Porter and just when I was thinking how thankful I was that Coolidge was sleeping through all this, he woke up. I could feel the tears starting to well up in my eyes and at that exact moment (no fooling) the phone rang and it was my angel mother calling to see how I was doing. After a brief explanation of the night's events she hopped in her car, stopped at the store for garbage bags and lice shampoo and headed over to save me. I honestly don't know how I would have survived the night without her. By the time she got there I had picked out most of the eggs from Porter's hair, but we shampooed him and then used the special comb to get the rest and we easily combed out 50 more eggs. The boys all selpt on the couches since their room was off limits. My mom stripped and bagged the boys' room while I vacuumed the rugs, fed Coolidge who had screamed himself back to sleep, and took everything to the basement to be washed, which I am STILL washing by the way. At 1am my mom went home and by 2am I was finally in bed. The next morning I called the school and they did a check on all the kids in Porter's classroom and found 2 girls with lice. They all hang up their coats in a line in the hallway so I think that's how he'd gotten it. Now I just have to check their heads every day for the next 2 weeks. Yesterday Andersen shaved Campbell's head so that we could check easier and then Campbell got to shave Andersen's head so now all my boys are bald.
