“So how much do you want cut off him today?” the hairdresser asked me.
Riley was seated between us, his hands lost beneath the black plastic cape she’d just wrapped around his neck. He would only stay still for so long.
“I want it all off; get the shavers out. Give him a number four.”
The hairdresser looked at me sideways. “That’s quite a lot.”
“Yes,” I said, averting my gaze. “I – uh – he – uh…”
“Yes?”
“He had nits two weeks ago. I just want to cover all my bases.”
The hairdresser gave a knowing smile – also pleased, I’ve no doubt, to have extracted my pained confession – and proceeded to shave away.
I hadn’t realised how long Riley’s hair had become and as his strawberry locks fell to the floor, my nose started to tickle and constrict the way it does just before I cry. He was transformed before my eyes from a chubby cherub to a rough-and-tumble boy.
******
One week later…
On Friday, I spent the better part of an afternoon in front of the television combing nits out of Keira’s hair. It seems I am unable to break this cycle; ‘cycle’ doesn’t even seem to be an adequate term. More an ‘open house of feeding upon my eldest born’s scalp.’ I’d doused her earlier with an ‘all natural’ product which did nothing but bathe the shits in 100% lavender oil. As I scraped them still wriggling out of her hair I’m sure I could hear them protest, “But hang on, we haven’t had our facials or Hawaiian hot stone massage yet!”
As I pressed their bodies beneath my fingernails, hearing with satisfaction that little ‘pop’ as they went so, I said, “Spa’s over, bastards.”
As luck (I guess you could call it that…) would have it, Beaches was the midday movie playing and at that moment it was Hilary role-playing as the perfect housewife to her husband. As he asks her what she was going to do that day, she replies,
“I’m going to buy a wrench. We don’t have one.”
Distempered as I was, I felt like saying, “Half your bloody luck bitch. Swap you places and you come have these buggers crawl all over you.”
(Then I realised I’d been this snarky before; but hell I’m going to blog it anyway.)
But because I am as emotionally manipulated through the Arts as ever, I was soon sucked into the movie (again) and was weeping by the end. Why?
Because no matter how many times people tell me that nits aren’t “Your fault”, “It happens to everyone”, “It happens to the dirty haired/ clean haired kids” that doesn’t take away the fact that at some level I suspect that it reflects upon my parenting skills (or should that read ‘Skillz’?) and, in turn, I find I am turning up a little lacking.
It’s like an eight legged critter – or dozens of them – trampling all over the imaginative metaphor-maker in my head and it’s sending me round the freaking bend. Because in my rather preoccupied state at the moment, the best my mind can come up with is NITS = CRAPPY MOTHERING.
And for that reason – and that alone, because I am fully aware on the scale of problems in life that this really doesn’t rank – I hummed “Wind Beneath my Wings” to placate my bad mood.
And then Riley woke up from his nap.
Scratching his head.
$^@^@^$ with the whole $$^% *%*%* &#*&# !!!!!
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Been there, done nits! I have found the best stuff is the Neutra Lice Lotion. It is oily stuff, smells strongly of tea tree oil, but seems to work. I normally leave it in the hair for a while (at least an hour) then comb the nits out while the lotion is still on the hair, helps make it easier to comb through. Then I wash hair, the smell lingers for days, but I think that helps keep them away!! I also put a few drops of tea tree oil in the water spray I use on my kids hair, also seems to help. And nit combs don’t work particularly well, I use a normal fine tooth comb and pull the nits out with my fingernails!
We call them lice here. I much prefer “nits,” it sounds less disgusting.
I had ‘em about three times when I was a kid, and it’s not because my family was “dirty.” I had major trouble getting rid of them because my hair was so thick too.
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We have them too *sob*
Didn’t discover them on the weekend till AFTER the damn chemist was closed and of course we have run out of treatment stuff at home.
So they are home from school today *sniff*
I know it’s not my fault but……………… yeah. *grimaces*
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I must have spent a fortune on lice products over the years. My girls – particularly the younger two – have quite thick hair, so I’d go through a bottle of those expensive products with the one application! – and then the little buggers were still wriggling when I combed them out! They are rapidly becoming resistant to all the treatments anyway. Whereas with conditioner? Stops them in their tracks – well, it suffocates them for long enough anyway – 20 minutes supposedly.
So my tips? Cheap conditioner – I use the Coles brand that comes in a pump pack, so it’s easier to pump big dollops onto your hands. On dry hair – that’s important. If the hair is already wet, it isn’t as effective. Comb through with a normal comb first to detangle. Then the metal type lice comb (works better than the plastic one). White paper towel to wipe the comb/conditioner onto. Plastic bag to seal it all in at the end. And a bottle of wine. (For you, not the hair.) The wine is the most expensive part of the whole procedure.
Do a couple of days running to catch the live ones you might have missed. I think it’s pretty hard to get them all in one hit – and then again within a week, then you tend to be able to break the cycle. Once you’ve got the big ones you’ve got a few days up your sleeve till any newly hatched ones (from eggs you might have missed) are old enough to lay eggs themselves. And then just try and do it as a weekly thing (yeah, right, that happens….!)… which can pick up any eggs, newly hatched, or newly arrived ones before they take a hold.
Of course, you can do everything, but they can just go back to school and pick up more anyway!
I can’t be sure, but I think that since my youngest has been regularly using a tea tree shampoo that she’s had less ‘infestations’. I don’t think it completely prevents it, but it helps.
I’ve been through the angst (you might remember a rather drunken post I wrote once…!) and out the other side, and have suddenly become more zen about them. They don’t carry disease. And it’s nothing to do with your mothering or housekeeping. And it’s pointless going beserk about laundering all the bed linen, etc – god, the hard times I subjected myself to for no bloody reason!! Pillow slip and towel get changed, that’s all.
Hey at least you don’t have three girls – you can’t give girls no 4s… And the good thing is that as kids progress through primary school, they don’t tend to put their heads as close together or something, so there seems to be less transferral. Unfortunately you have a while to go on that score … but there is light at the end of the tunnel!
And remember, when you’re feeling down about it… Everybody’s doing it.
(But why is it that whenever you talk about head lice, you start your head starts itching? You’ve got ME scratching my head now!)
Tracey’s last blog post..Wouldn’t you think…?
Nits are something we haven’t experienced. One of the unexpected bonuses of just having boys, I suspect. (But I still have a child in primary school, so I don’t count ourselves as being out of the woods yet…)
Still, I was battling pantry moths yesterday, so I guess the insect world finds a way to get us no matter how hard we try …
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I *know* it has nothing to do with one’s mothering skills, but when I was told that my kids had lice I obediently went off to the chemist to buy the product that promised that it would kill the lice *and* unhatched eggs. Followed the instructions to the letter. Combed their hair with a nit comb. Couldn’t see the point of that, it didn’t comb out any nits. Washed towels and sheets.
So a week later the school calls me up and gets me in there to show me that my kids still have lice. Long examination and explanation of why it’s so important that I get rid of them. How to get rid of them. ‘No,’ I would say if I weren’t biting back tears of humiliation, ‘That’s not how you do it. That’s what I already did.’
Spent a day in the sun with each child picking them out one at a time by hand. By fingernail. The nits, not the lice. The lice do die form the treatment.
I should get nits. I love having someone combing through my hair for hours. There must be a business opportunity in there somewhere.
No, a bad mother is one who goes “bugger it, I give up fighting against the critter”.
(((HUGS))) Sounds frustrating.
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Heh. Thoroughly enjoyable post! Nothing like the visit to the classroom by the local nit-nurse. I believe they have a more politically correct name, but the kids know who they are and they’ll always call a spade a bloody spade!
And there’s always one who disappears surreptitiously soon afterwards, bag on their shoulder and about to wait quietly by the office for Mum to pick them up before a quick trip to the supermarket for a domestic sized barrel of turpentine.
And the kids ALWAYS know why they’ve left… and generally don’t give two stuffs either, I’ve found.
Mind you… I always steer clear of the nit-nurse when she comes to check the kids in the grade. The kids have enough ammunition on me as it is!
Cheers.
Mr V’s last blog post..Oh no, are they okay..?
Totally agree with Tracey – conditioner is the way to go.
I think I can raise you on the bad mother stakes.
I’m sitting at the kitchen table, glass of wine in hand, when 12 year old son comes up.
Son: Mum I think I’ve got nits.
Me: Oh yeah? What makes you think that?
Son: When I scratch my head they fall out onto my book!!!
OMG!
The first run through with the nit comb (I do the conditioner thing) I reckon I caught 10! That’s one pull through the hair.
At least you don’t have them… the first time my kids caught them I did too – there must have been generations by the time I thought to check. I had long hair. I slid down the wall of my bathroom and sobbed.
So, you see… could be worse!
PS I reckon there’s a kids book in all this!
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(I’ve just lost a great WHOPPING response to comments here)
quick recap:
Tracey – I love how we go back that far that I do remember your angst over the years
cellobella – HUGS HUGS! How awful! (dirty secret – when riley caught them 1st time, I did too…..I just left that part out….. too shameful). I hope you get the buggers good!
Mr V – I readin the papers how in VIC a certain principal wants nit nurses to be returned to all schools. I’m interested to hear yours still has one!
to all else, thanks for your support and general bolstering of spirits xxxxx
I had my hair cut as well. Ah well, it’ll grow back.
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Hugs. We go through this nearly every year. I agree, even though it is so common, it doesn’t stop you from feeling like a feral family when they infest the kids.
We’ve tried everything and then some.
Our best success was with the conditioner and a solution of vinegar and water afterwards. Seems the little bugger’s eggs couldn’t adhere to the shaft.
With my big girls now, if they are persistent, I will just put a hair dye through. It kills everything. A hairdresser told me that once and it has worked both times I have had to do it.
PS there is some blog bling for you on my blog.
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Oh – I can sit here bathing in the glory of being the mother who, when the nit notice came home from school, checked her daughter’s hair and found NOTHING! Nyah, nyah!
Of course, the sheer exulatation of that is because this is the first lice season where we have not had to do the constant combing because she attracts them like flies. I used to take heart in the notion that they prefer clean hair anyway.
The first ever discovery in our household was when she was 16 months old – and I was being my sister’s “best woman” at her wedding, we were doing practice “upstyles” (or whatever) and we found them in my hair – my thick hair that hung down to my waist. A week of conditioning and combing later, there was NO upstyle that would hold for the wedding!
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