Thursday, October 20, 2011

Can I borrow your headgear?


A letter came home from school about head lice yesterday.  Nice.  And since that is the last thing we need crawling around over here, I went straight to my hippy friend at Metro Market and she set me up with some Tea Tree Oil Shampoo and concentrated Tea Tree Oil to put behind the kids' ears.  She said lice do not like Tea Tree Oil and somehow it "gives them the impression that you are not human".   Ok.  Well, hopefully the hippy will win out on this one, because it would be awfully nice if this worked as a preventative measure.  And in my germaphobe world, option two is pulling Henry out of school.  Seriously.

Get to the funny part already!  Well, in reading through the pamphlet the Health Department sent home, I found these words of wisdom, "Use disposable shower caps when headgear must be worn by different children."  I'm not sure what's grosser, lice or sharing headgear?  Yuck.  And I'm certain that the only thing geekier than headgear is having to wear a shower cap underneath it?  TGIF...tomorrow.

4 comments:

Joia Poort said...

Um, I think they mean sharing things like helmets...I only know this because I forgot to send Bailey to school on a "unicycle" day (don't ask!) and she came home with a hair net thing (like from a c-sect) that she was required to wear under the used helmet. She thought it was awesome. I wanted to puke. On to the lice situation...those notices are becoming extremely normal to me and somehow we've escaped it every time. Tea Tree shampoo works great in repelling them. Also, I buy the bottles of the oil at Trader Joe's and add it to a spray bottle with water in it and spray it on coats, hats, backpacks. I do put a spray that I spend entirely too much on the girls' hair daily (back of neck and behind ears). Last, I think b/c the girls do swimming, they don't like the chlorine either. If you DO happen to get it, call me. I seriously have read so much on this. You "shampoo" with cetaphyl soap and DO NOT rinse. Instead, blow dry hair until it's dry and leave in for 8 hours. That suffocates them. You can also do olive oil (it's so messy though) over night with the head wrapped up in plastic (slightly dangerous too). The chemical ones are not working as well as they're becoming resistant. There's NOTHING I hate more than Lice letters.

Liz said...

Wow, OK, so now we know who the authority on this stuff is...thanks Joia. Glad I know you. :) And no, helmets were mentioned in the letter as well, I swear they were literally referring to the soft backing of a headgear (as seen in pic). Wild, I know.

Heidi Bruch said...

Omg, we got a lice letter at Hayden's preschool last year and I nearly kept her home that week. Crossing my fingers for you....I feel your anxiety!

* Chrissy * said...

Gross. Gross. And Gross. I would have thought about pulling my little guy out of school too. :)