Cleaning house and heads!

So the cleaning lady has come twice! She came for over 3 hours the first time and just cleaned the floors and bathrooms. Everything had been neglected so long that I was scared I overworked her. (When I came home after the agree-upon three hours she was still here, finishing up the bathrooms.) But, thankfully, she came back two weeks later and was here for 2.5 hours. My goal is to get to 2 hours every other week, so we'll have to tidy up well before she comes, so she can motor through the house.
She cleans the bathrooms and the floors. Oh my lord, everything feels shiny and new, the air smells of Murphy's oil soap. Luckily, I got a raise at work (Go nurse's union!) and for now I'm going to use that to pay her. I know I should put it towards debt-pay-off, but having her come this past month has really helped us feel less slovenly and overwhelmed

Well, actually we do feel pretty slovenly about the lice re-infestation. Yuck! Just one week after the initial discovery and treatment, the girls and I all had it. Apparently these lice are hard to kill (What? You don't want me to come over for a playdate?) and the pesticides don't work. Uggh. I had been pretty mellow about the whole thing the first time, but this time I was really disgusted by the grown louse I found in Lily's hair. Nasty!

After much on-line research I compiled our treatment program.

First spray hair with full strength Listerine (original for blondies; the mint will turn their hair blue.)

Let dry 2 hours with shower cap on while children complain of stinging scalp (I did it too, it just felt cool. No mercy. Keep it on for 2 hours and then comb out hair with a nit comb.)

(I know no one really wants to hear this, but one becomes rather obsessed reading all the weird on-line suggestions and endless stories of lives almost being destoyed by lice infestations that were cured with mouthwash and prayer or some such combination.)

Then shower and use Denorex - extra strength, which is thick and irridescent, and brown - which is strange. It tingles the scalp and smells medicinal. Leave on three minutes.

We keep running out of hot water with all three of us rinsing out this odd junk from our hair.

Rob is avoiding treatment because he has almost no hair and I didn't see anything living in his scalp, but he liked the smell of Denorex so maybe he can use up the rest.

Then use Suave Coconut conditioner. The girls liked this, it was slippery, smelled good and didn't hurt their heads.

Rinse, then another run-through with the nit comb.

I tried to make this part quaint, sitting in front of the woodstove and drying off.

Then we all had shiny fluffy hair that smelled of mouthwash, coconuts and pine tar.

Not a nit to be found among us.

Then to sleep on our pristine pillows.

Now we're doing coconut oil and a combing through every couple days.

The chunky hard oil doesn't rinse out well, so they look like greasy headed kids, but I'm hoping we're done with this fiasco.