A truly traumatic experience.

About two months ago I noticed that Paige and I were itching our heads rather frequently. At first I didn't think much of it, but then it really started to bother me. Why do our heads itch?, I'd ask myself. It was just the two of us with the problem, but we were doing it often enough that it was catching my attention. I thought that perhaps we had dandruff or some kind of scalp dermatitis. So I bought a shampoo to target itching, but it didn't help. Hmmm... What was the culprit?

It didn't take long, and Abby started to itch the back of her head, too. Oh, no! I thought I had a sudden revelation: What if we have head lice?!? O_O

I did not want it to be true, but the fact that it MIGHT be the cause of the itching was too coincidental to be ignored. So I checked Paige and Abby's head, but I didn't see anything. I waited a few more days; still more itching. I finally did some online research so I'd know what I was looking for, and I checked their heads more thoroughly. With a dejected face I discovered we did in fact have it. :( Then came the brain-wracking questions: How did we get this?! Who could have given it to us? Who have we given it to???

Without being too descriptive let's just say I did multiple loads of laundry, vacuumed my house and its contents many times, and spent hours every day checking the girls' heads. We quarantined ourselves to our home; within two days the girls and I had watched an entire season of one of those cheesy teen shows they like. :)

I am super paranoid now about head itching. For weeks I had David check my head whenever I got the slightest tingle. The word "scarred" comes to mind. ;-)

I don't have any concrete answers as to how we contracted the lice, but I do know that earlier in the summer we tried on hats at a few department stores. I can only assume that we got it there. I didn't want you to have to read about the yucky details of having head lice, but I wanted to write this post so that I could give everyone some advice: if you or your child is tempted to try on that floppy sun hat on clearance at Target or the goofy Halloween mask at Walmart, DON'T DO IT! You just never know who tried it on before you and what they had on their head when they did it. :|