Drown 'Em in Mayo!

Right around the time lady summer started to really turn the heat up I noticed my 4yr old, Meshach, start to itch his head a lot. I figured since his little blond shags were starting to look like an afro, he was probably in need of a hair cut. My husband, Brandon, and I thought it was time for him to transition out of toddler hood into being a "big boy" with a new do, a Mohawk. But, as Brandon was buzzing his sides he started noticing dark colored sesame seeds at the roots. At first we thought it might just be dirt or little specs of mulch leftover from the "mulch war" he and his 3 yr old brother Zeke had earlier that day. And then one of the specs moved. After a lot of shrieks and "Oh my gosh this is so disgusting! My kids are becoming the dirty kids!", we moved into action. Clearly since this was a bug on our sons head we researched what it was and how to terminate it.

While Brandon was googling remedies, I had my mom on the phone to reassure me that it was not bad parenting and lack of personal hygiene that caused this infestation. On the contrary, lice actually prefer clean heads (so there, my kids aren't dirty!). And since lice apparently do not carry any life threatening diseases with them, we knew that a home remedy was appropriate for this situation. At this point I was still very, very pregnant with a fourth baby boy, Jov, and the conventional, highly concentrated with chemicals, medicines are very dangerous to pregnant women. And I think it's safe to say that if it's harmful to my precious fetus, then it must pose some danger to a small child and should be used as a last resort. So what's left to kill the little itchy buggers? Mayo. The consistency of mayo (or other very thick oil based products) is great for suffocating the lice, but the trick is that you have to keep it on for about 3 hours. So how do you keep mayo on a 4 yr olds head for 3 hours? First you have to put plastic wrap around their hair because they'll be so tempted to itch and lie every which way over everything and get mayo everywhere and 2 days later you'll have a funky odor coming form your couch. So we got Meshach packaged accordingly, sat him in front of the T.V. and played "Ameria's Got Talent" on a reel until it was time for him to shower off. While Meshach was marinating, I got all the linens from all of our beds, washed and dried them, and then also ran his pillows through the dryer on high for about 20 minutes (evidently, lice are intolerant to hot, dry heat). After he was showered, I went through his hair and picked out all of the dark looking sesame seeds (nits), and he was good to go. Although the mayo was more time and energy consuming than an over the counter medicine would have been, my mind was free of any concerns that we were hurting Meshach in any way by our debugging methods. When the fiasco was over, Meshach got to walk away with the benefit of a head full of soft and shiny hair, bug free.

In the past 8wks since the initial onslaught, we have had two more outbreaks (Zeke got it as well), and have spread our curse to three other homes.

Lesson Learned: If your family has lice, alert every single person that comes in contact with the infected family member and make sure you do not let the infected one sleep in anyone else's space (sorry Aunt Makahla, but thanks for letting Zeke nap in your bed!).