It's not just the 9yo with lice. It's also the 12yo, the 7yo, and I have my suspicions about the 4yo. And...shudder shudder SHUDDER SHUDDER I pulled a little crawling nymph off the baby's head.
That is deeply wrong. It also means I have to consider myself infested. I just don't see how I can sleep next to her every night and not pick them up if she's got them. Dr. Sears never warned us about that particular hazard of co-sleeping.
So. I decided to try the smothering approach on the two of us. I am not putting insecticide on a baby's scalp and I cannot be systematic about nit-combing an 8-month-old's head. I am not putting insecticide on my scalp because it will get absorbed into my bloodstream and into my baby's food supply. (I assume. The active ingredient is lipophilic so I assume it gets into human milk. Anybody know for sure?) If this doesn't work I will buzz my head because my hair is crazy thick. Won't that be attractive? Almost as attractive as this look (baby with butter which is less trickly, mom with olive oil which is less smelly).
She's still cute even with butter on her head, if you ask me.
Last night after baths I found four lice on three boys' heads and they each asked me -- separately, without knowing that their brothers felt the same way -- why we had to kill the lice. Couldn't we keep them? Couldn't we set them free?
My head did not explode (which is too bad, because that would have to be an effective lice management strategy, don't you figure?) but I did say, "What part of BLOODSUCKING PARASITE do you not understand?"
Here is where I kick myself for my tree-hugging peasant-skirted Birkenstock-wearing home-birthing co-sleeping tandem-nursing hippie-ness. What is this stupid "gentle with living things" mantra I have been spouting? Why didn't I say "MOSTLY gentle with living things BUT when you see bloodsucking parasites then go all Rambo on their sorry little heinies"??
I am adopting an alter-ego for dealing with lice: Jambo, the Mighty Louse Hunter. I thought about pretending that I had to find as many lice as possible to feed my family but you know what? Even my imagination doesn't stretch that far because ICK, and ICK some more. Jambo the MLH kills with relish and perhaps a very small louse-sized M16. Plus, she lives for laundering the bedding and the towels. Now if you'll pardon us, the dryer just buzzed. I'll be back, she says, sounding remarkably like the Terminator.
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