LICE!!

What is lice? I mean I have heard of lice, and I think of people with greasy dirty hair with lice. We move to Germany and the first thing I am told on the first day of school is "be prepared to get lice" The international school here is known for head lice. They tell me not to be alarmed and that lice likes clean hair, not dirty. So moms here are actually telling me not to wash my kids hair as often as I did in the states. Put product in their hair, put tea tree oil behind the ears, check your kids every week. and invest in a good metal comb to get the lice and eggs out. Where I am living? Why are the Germans having such a problem? I never saw this in any of my kids schools in the states.

Letters go home at least once a month to tell parents that there has been an outbreak of lice in the class and to check your kids before sending them back to school. So 8 months go by and I think we are doing good.

Well....Friday I am outside putting a clip in Emilee's hair and I see something running around in her hair. I tell her she cannot go to school and she starts to cry (she is only in Kindergarten, she still likes school). As we wait for the bus for Kayla I take a closer look at Emilee's hair and I see a few other things crawling around. NASTY!!

So I go to the Apotheka (pharmacy) and tell them what has happened to my little 6 year old, and the pharmacist tells me the German schools have this a lot. Nice!

So we go home and shampoo her hair and leave on the Läuse Shampoo (lice) for 30 min. I shake out her head after in the tub and I swear 15 fall out of her head. So we do the whole thing over.

So I do a little research and find that head lice can survive 30 days on 'human' head. A female will lay up to 3-5 eggs per day. It take 7-10 days for the eggs to hatch and another 7-10 days for the louse to mature and lay their own eggs!

How long has this crap been in her head! Poor thing, such thick curly hair on her head, we are never going to get it all off. Shaving might be our last resort!

So after 3 days of checking, cutting, peeling off the eggs I think she is ready for school today. So I wake up and look at her hair and find more eggs! I have no clue who gave all this too her, but I am so not impressed.

I had Kayla check my head today and we found 2 eggs! I wait for Ben to come home and he finds one more. I do the treatment and hopefully I got it early. My friend Natalie will check my head tomorrow.

Lice sucks! This sucks! I spend 3 hours a day looking for and taking eggs out of Emilee's hair. There has to be a better way!

Update...Natalie and Jen found 14 on me! So obviously I went home and treated myself. Emilee told me that she never wants to live in Germany again!! Poor thing!

the egg the full size mother!