The 14 Stages of Finding Out Your Child Has Lice
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Lice. Just the sound of it makes your head itch and your skin crawl. It's a fact of life with school-aged kids — one that is likely to touch your family at some point during kids' school careers. While the little bugs aren't harmful, they sure wreak havoc on your home life. Here, what it's really like when you get the dreaded lice call from school.
01
It's lice-check day at school today.
02
Your phone rings and the school nurse is on the other end.
You can't quite believe what she is telling you. "Ma'am, your child has lice. Please come pick him up immediately."
03
Suddenly, your head itches. You can't get rid of the feeling of bugs crawling on you.
04
As you head toward school, you're in denial.
The nurse doesn't know what she's talking about! There's no way your child has lice.
05
When you get to school and see your child, you don't want to get too close.
Right now, you wouldn't touch your child with a 10-foot pole.
06
You then start trying to figure out who could have given it to your child.
07
When you get home, you immediately google lice and print out every article about de-licing kids.
08
Following the instructions, you start combing out your child's hair.
And you keep combing, combing, combing.
09
As school lets out, your phone starts buzzing as other parents start gossiping about which children were sent home.
10
And you start washing everything in sight on the hottest setting you can find.
11
And you start disinfecting everything in your home — even the disinfecting bottle.
12
You go to the local lice prevention location to see if your child is lice-free . . . only to learn those eggs have hatched.
13
You head to the store and buy every lice-prevention spray and shampoo there is.
14