At least every week for about six years the children would get a note in their school bag announcing: "A child in your child's class has got lice…" followed by some scary stuff in capital letters and very mean looking font, telling us all about the perils of leaving it unattended and how it is my duty, nay, my mission in life, to defeat the ugly beast.
So I complied, and every time I would drag Júlia and Michael to the garden, having drowned them in hair conditioner first, and went through the motions of trying to find lice/nits. It is painful. Every single time. Our children are blessed with our genes: thick curly hair and thick curly hair cannot produce thin limp straight hair. But we went through the motions and every time with both zilch, nada, rien du tous, nothing; no lice or nits from either of them…
…until six months ago when Júlia started scratching her head as if it was going out of fashion. She's had eczema since she was a baby, and a dry scalp as a result, and so have I, so I knew that the scratching was way too frantic to be that; so I got out the Full Marks shampoo and the nit comb and went hunting. Sweet Jesus! I had a white paper towel to clean the comb and within minutes it was grey!!! I couldn't stop myself from exclaiming loudly every time a big lice showed up and Júlia would recoil with embarrassment: "Please mummy, can you stop doing that!..." but I couldn't. I am sorry Amorzinho…
Here's what the blighters look like:
It all just brings back memories.
I am the middle one of five, from rural Portugal, we didn't get letters from school but you knew when you had lice, on rotation one of my brothers would be scratching his head; my mother would regularly check all of us, whether out of duty or for pleasure, and make us (ie me as the oldest girl) go through her hair (she had hair down to her hips, thick as a blanket) if anything was found she would get flea powder cover our hair and scalp with it, tie a scarf and send us to bed. I can smell it now! This mixture of sulphates and ammonia, but dry, and sticking to the back of your throat, and the powder itself was really itchy! Apparently my blood was not good enough for lice and they just died on my scalp; never stopped my mother doing the treatment though…
Tonight Júlia and I had to go through it again, and she was so good! She asked "Please mummy can you not go OMG every time you find something? It's worse than the itching!" and I tried to but OMG, David Attenborough could do a documentary about the wild life on her hair…
I am sorry Amorzinho… I love you and all your nits!!!
So I complied, and every time I would drag Júlia and Michael to the garden, having drowned them in hair conditioner first, and went through the motions of trying to find lice/nits. It is painful. Every single time. Our children are blessed with our genes: thick curly hair and thick curly hair cannot produce thin limp straight hair. But we went through the motions and every time with both zilch, nada, rien du tous, nothing; no lice or nits from either of them…
…until six months ago when Júlia started scratching her head as if it was going out of fashion. She's had eczema since she was a baby, and a dry scalp as a result, and so have I, so I knew that the scratching was way too frantic to be that; so I got out the Full Marks shampoo and the nit comb and went hunting. Sweet Jesus! I had a white paper towel to clean the comb and within minutes it was grey!!! I couldn't stop myself from exclaiming loudly every time a big lice showed up and Júlia would recoil with embarrassment: "Please mummy, can you stop doing that!..." but I couldn't. I am sorry Amorzinho…
Here's what the blighters look like:
It all just brings back memories.
I am the middle one of five, from rural Portugal, we didn't get letters from school but you knew when you had lice, on rotation one of my brothers would be scratching his head; my mother would regularly check all of us, whether out of duty or for pleasure, and make us (ie me as the oldest girl) go through her hair (she had hair down to her hips, thick as a blanket) if anything was found she would get flea powder cover our hair and scalp with it, tie a scarf and send us to bed. I can smell it now! This mixture of sulphates and ammonia, but dry, and sticking to the back of your throat, and the powder itself was really itchy! Apparently my blood was not good enough for lice and they just died on my scalp; never stopped my mother doing the treatment though…
Tonight Júlia and I had to go through it again, and she was so good! She asked "Please mummy can you not go OMG every time you find something? It's worse than the itching!" and I tried to but OMG, David Attenborough could do a documentary about the wild life on her hair…
I am sorry Amorzinho… I love you and all your nits!!!
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