Head Lice:  5;  Sue:  about 2.3 perhaps

Oh my. I sadly let my mind go tonight and think about the number of books I could have read (?or written?); the number of cakes I could have designed, baked and decorated – over the course of the time that I have been battling head lice!  Today the exhaustion from just the daily amount of laundry I am doing to keep then at bay, an email from a friend L. who shared about the four months (MONTHS!!!!) her family battled lice ending in cutting off her three daughters’ locks on the back porch with tears flowing everywhere, and word from our local pharmacist that lice is a big problem right now in our neighborhood — has driven me to taking more drastic steps with our children.

First – for the girls — I went with the mayonnaise soak – slathered throughout their hair;  wrapped in plastic wrap for an hour or two…(yes, Liv is holding her latest pet lizard)…

The mayo is rinsed out; hair conditioned, then smeared with warm vinegar.  At this point they sat out on the front step while I went through their hair with a special comb.  Oh the fun, the fun!!!  The hours!  Then they shampooed again with Denorex.  We are going to do all but the mayo every day for the next week.

For the boys… there was only one smart thing to do:

Now nothing can hide in their heads.  They will be quite safe.  My own desperate measures may come in the next day or two….

But perhaps the most desperate measure came at dinner tonight.  My friend L. told me in her email that she had shared with her girls the story of Corrie Ten Boom.  So as we sat in McDonalds tonight and I was getting up the courage to get my boys’ hair buzzed for the first time ever, I told them the story.  Corrie and her sister Betsy who smuggled Jews in their Dutch home in the early 1940s… getting caught – the two sisters being sent to one of the worst German concentration camps.  Being put into a warehouse with hundreds of women crammed into dirty bunks… and terrible lice everywhere.  The guards who ignored their cries for medicine or kerosene to kill the lice.  Betsy told Corrie they needed to thank God for the lice.  Corrie could barely bring herself to do it.  But she did.  They had smuggled in part of a bible, and each night the women would gather around the Ten Booms’ bed for reading, encouragement, and prayer.  The atmosphere in their building changed as the hope and power of God filled it.  But they kept wondering why the guards did not come in during the evening and stop their study, or check on them.  They had complete freedom to study the bible and share the hope of the Gospel.  Later, they found out the reason no guards came in was — because of the lice.  Even though the food had come at this point, the kids waited to dig into their nuggets until they heard the rest of the story… and were sad to hear that Betsy died in prison.  I shared what a hero Corrie has been to my  – how the way she and her sister lived their lives has taught me a lot about how to live mine.  I’ve promised to show them the movie in a few years…

So Annie prayed for our food.  “Dear Jesus, thank you for this food.  And thank you for our lice.  Please help Daddy to come home soon.  Amen.”

So, like Corrie, I am slower than some members of my family at being able to say thank you.  Working on it!  Lice call for desperate measures.