Itchy

Earlier this school year, I showed up at Bear’s school, and I found a sign taped to his classroom door.  There was a large picture of an insect on it and a lot of writing in French.  Even though I had no idea what the sign said, I knew it wasn’t good news.  I went home and consulted with my translator; Dr. Google.  Apparently the sign said that lice was going around Bear’s school, and we needed to consult our local pharmacist for treatment.  Awesome.  Despite this warning, I still believed that this wouldn’t happen to us.  We hadn’t gotten sick since we had Hand, Food, and Mouth Disease.  It was kind of incredible.  When chickenpox was running through the school like wildfire, we remained unscathed.  Our American vaccine made the kids invincible.  So, I just assumed/hoped that our hearty American immune systems would prevent us from getting lice.  I was wrong.

Yes! This!

About a week after i saw the sign, I saw Bear scratch his head one time.  I was immediately alarmed.  I sat him in sunlight and checked his head.  I had no idea what I was looking for, but I didn’t see a thing.  The next day, we took a day trip to Ghent, and Bear was scratching a little more.  We got home late that evening, and I looked at his head again.  This time, his head was very obviously teeming with itchy, parasitic, crawling lice.  I took one look at this, and threw Bear off of my lap.  I washed my hands and started scratching my own head.  The feel of phantom lice was driving me crazy.

First thing in the morning, I went to the pharmacy and picked up the lice treatment and lice combs.  It was American President’s Day so Hubby had the day off.  He got to spend the morning delousing the kids, while I deloused the house.  It was SO. MUCH. WORK.  The Belgian lice had conspired against us to ruin American President’s Day.

I started doing endless loads of laundry.  The second load of laundry was done and I went to transfer it to the dryer, but when I looked in the machine, it looked like there was still some streaky soap left behind.  I let the machine go though another rinse cycle which made the white streaks worse.  I emptied the machine and found that Bear had left (not one, but) TWO pull up diapers in his hamper.  They got waterlogged and covered the laundry in diaper residue.  It looked like it had snowed in the washing machine.

Diaper snow: the gift that keeps on giving.

The next weekend, we hired our responsible adult babysitter to stay overnight with our kids.  By then the lice was gone (Bear was the only one of us who actually had lice.), and I was ready for my first night away from the kids…ever.  It was glorious.  We relaxed for the weekend in Brugge.  We returned, and two days later heard from our babysitter…that she had somehow contracted The Mumps.  Yes.  Seriously.  Immunizations, don’t fail us now!

This summer, Bear is in a camp that takes the kids on regular field trips.  When they leave the building, the kids need to wear these stupid, neon orange, Gilligan style hats.  The hats get transferred from kid to kid, and I’m fairly certain that they have never been and will never be washed.  What’s more likely: the camp staff losing Bear on the metro, or Bear getting lice from one of the orange hats?  Fear not.  There are still 7 more weeks of camp left to find out the answer to this question.  That’s plenty of time for Bear to get lice just before we leave for our summer vacation.