Nothing says, "Jesus loves you!" like a good VBS head lice check.

It started last night at about 10:30 PM. My sister's friend called stating that she thought that her daughter got lice at our VBS. My sister called me. Since it was a suspected case with nothing afoot to speak of (including my sister's children and my child coming up free of feet), we were thinking that perhaps she was in a state of hypochondria. Still, this AM, I pulled the director aside and told her.

The VBS teacher asked my niece why her friend wasn't there today. She stated that J- was sick. The teacher inquired more as to what was wrong. That was when my niece whispered to her, "J-'s mom thinks that she found bugs in her hair."

At that point, we thought it best to pull the class (as per Health Department protocol since we do have a school on site) and check to be sure. After an hour and a half, we had three suspected cases and I cashed in on the one live case we had.

Oh joy.

Parents were called. Siblings were pulled. We have one family that wants to treat (a suspected case) and come to our shin-dig this evening. I told her that my advice was to call the Health Department to ask their take on treatment and holding.

How were the kids? They were good sports. We didn't make a big deal about it. If they had what we thought or confirmed, they went outside to the bench and waited. If they were cleared, they colored on the mural. No one made fun of anyone else and no one panicked.

Still, I could have thought of may other ways that we could have had fun other than checking kids' heads.

For now, my head is tingly after having been highly conditioned with tea tree conditioner. K- is still under treatment. I figure that for the two of us, it can't hurt.

:scratch, scratch:

Oh, and this is post number 2 today. Read on.

ETA:
The child that had the live lice looking back at me and waving? Well, the parents checked her head, saw nothing, chose NOT to treat her and brought her tonight to the end of the week family gathering anyhow! UGH!!!! Really? Another suspected case came, but he was treated per instructions from the Health Department.

When we arrived home this evening, K-'s hair got checked and scrubbed -- again -- and is smelling tea tree fine right now. I was also told that the lice buggies don't like Garnier Fructis, which I have a whole host of product from, so I used that on her, too.

UGH! YUCK! ICK!

:scratch, scratch: