Thursday's on the bench

Hello everyone and how are you all doing today. We are talking from our respective homes today as we are not meeting. We have had the warmest weather so far this year and I have been stuck inside for most of it. My kids have swimmers ear and are both in quite a bit of pain. I have gone to the walk in clinic and to the grocery store and that's about it. To top it all off my youngest said that her head was itchy on Monday morning so I checked her and she has head lice. I am not in a panic as we have dealt with this nascence before so I know what to do. We have been fortunate we never had to deal with lice, but a few years ago when the teenager was young we did have to deal with worms. Gross, gross, gross, though she was the one who had them we all had to take this medicine. Which my husband called worm juice! I do think though she got them from holding a duck feather! I had heard that duck feathers are extremely nasty, and since then I am a little over freaked out by any kid touching duck or bird feathers. Which I know is hard for younger kids and we do have a lot of Canadian geese in our city parks.

(back to lice)

It is very time consuming and tedious work to get rid of these bugs. We are pretty much nit free right now but the olive oil treatments will continue every three days from the very first day for about 15 days. So I will be pouring a very liberal amount of olive oil on her hair (don't worry you don't need to use your most expensive extra virgin olive oil), then I wrap her hair in saran wrap, and put a bathing cap on top of that. She will keep this on her head for about 2 hours and this will ensure that it will kill any live lice in the hair that may have hatched since the last treatment. I know, I know, Gross, Gross, Gross. Then I wash out the hair, shampoo and condition it. Then I rinse it out but leave some conditioner in so that the comb can easily pass through the hair. Why olive oil? Could any oil work? I think that the olive oil is thicker then canola or vegetable oil.I read on http://obnoxiousgreendoor.blogspot.com/she used Sauve coconut conditioner. Isn't it funny how as you read this your own head starts to itch!!

Then comes the fun part. My special lice comb and a very good pair of magnifying glasses, I start to go through each section of hair with the comb. I run it through about 5 times per very small section and then wipe the comb on a piece of paper towel. I put each section of hair in a small hair tie so that I know which ones have been done and then continue on to the next very small section. The comb is to remove any nits which may still be on the hair. These nits if not removed will hatch and form new baby lice and the problem will start all over again.

I did this on Monday and it took me about 5 hours to go through the entire head of hair. The first day is always the most work. Since Monday the next two days is dry nit picking which means you go out into very good light and check each section of the dry hair piece by piece and pick out any nits that you see. I did not see any on these on Tuesday or Wednesday but believe me I know that there may be some that were missed. I also flat ironed her hair on Monday because I heard that the heat will destroy anything left on the hair (I'm not sure if that works or not). I would be interested to know if this flat iron method works as I might just flat iron the little one's hair over the next couple of weeks. Can you get the flat iron that close to the scalp where I am told the nits are? You have to be careful but you can get pretty close to the scalp. Does it work I don't know how to really judge that, I can only tell you that the next two days I did not find anything in her hair. So far, knock on wood, we have not had lice. Sunshine, who has researched this subject fully, has told me that lice tend to like straight hair over curly, kinky hair. I don't remember ever saying that. I know that they prefer clean hair over anything with product in it but as to the hair texture, I don't know that they are that picky. If I have said that in the past then I am sorry because I don't think that it is an accurate statement.Well then I don't know where I heard it, all of us in our family have very curly, kinky hair. Also, I have read that because boys do not share combs, brushes and such that there is a diminished chance for the lice to hop on their heads. All the same, take nothing for granted and check.

If you are unfortunate enough to get lice in your home then you must also check all other family members and inform anyone that you have been in contact with for lets see the last 10 days or so (that was the fun part). You are the bearer of bad news and you hope that your friends and family don't hate you and cross your fingers that they too do not acquire such unwelcome guests because of you.

(Carolin)Yes we got the phone call and yes I went into panic mode. One cause we have never had it and the whole thing just gives me the creeps. Sunshine is much stronger with this then I am. The little one is a VBS (vacation bible school) this week at our church so when Sunshine called, I wasn't sure what to do. Wait till she gets home and check or go to the church and have a look. There are about 150 kids at VBS this week and one of the kids had just had his third bought of brain cancer and only had the latest tumor removed a few weeks ago. I had to go to the church and check the little ones head cause if she had it and passed it on to this child I just couldn't live with the guilt. So, I hopped in the car and went to the church. I spoke to the office staff and I got the little one out of her group and we brought her into an office and then proceeded to check. Thankfully, we didn't see anything! I have been checking twice a day since and still don't see anything. I also had my husband check my hair but he didn't see anything. So hopefully we are good.

What was sad though, was when I went to get the little one from her group, she held my hand as we started to walk to the church office and she said very sadly, "Who died Mommy, what bad thing has happened?" She was just about in tears and I had to reassure her that everyone is good. Once I told her why I was there she was a little grossed out but relieved when we didn't find anything. It broke my heart to think if she sees her Dad or I at a unusual time she first thinks someone is sick or has died. For a 9 year old she has just seen too much death in her life. I didn't go to my first funeral till I was 19 years old! That is when my Grandmother died, that was the first time I faced death. For my kids they have lost their Grandparents (my in laws) and the sudden death of my brother, plus extended family and friends. Even today the teenager texted me from camp to say a friend's older brother (19 years old) died on Wednesday of leukemia. I agree with you Carolin a close death changes everything in a family and somehow everyone involved is never the same again. I'm sorry that she was scared and I wish that things could be different especially with our little ones.

(back to lice)

You also need to wash the bedding and comforters on the first day and give your couches and floors and your car a good vacuum. After that you really only need to worry about the pillow case for the next little while and wash them nightly. The most important task in removing head lice is to get all the heads in your house free of all lice and nits, that is really where you should focus most of your attention. Don't drive yourself crazy with trying to find out where it came from because unless someone fesses up and calls you to let you that their children have it and they have been around your children, you will never really know. They can also have acquired it from a chair at the movie theatre or something like that. So, bottom line, I don't know where it came from and I probably will never really know. I don't know about others but I do know when I am sitting in my seat at the movie theater I am conscious of the lice and germ thing. I try to keep the panic down and there are times I will put a sweater behind my head. I don't think it would make a big difference but it makes me feel better. We just went to a movie last night. We saw, "Harry Potter and the half blood Prince". I always bring a sweater to the movies because I find the air conditioning too cold. I actually used my sweater on the back of my seat to hopefully keep my hair from catching lice. There might not have been lice at the movies last night, however, the theatre smelled very strongly of urine! Very gross! I'm not a movie person and I think I now know why....

Enough about the lice topic. This weekend is a very busy weekend. My sister is off on vacation so we will meet on Friday with her and my kids and my nieces. Then on Saturday I have a baby shower,(which I believe I will miss as we are also on vacation) and on Sunday I have a bunch of family over for a BBQ. The next two weeks my husband is actually on vacation (does he need any help with the floors?) I don't think the floors are on his mind at all this time of year. The kids will start school once again.(school, that's sad, I like them home) We are booked with events right up until that time. I am hoping that we can all meet for a bon fire and swim one night before the end of the Summer (me, Cathy, Carolin and Louise). I hope that we can all find the time to do that. If Cathy hasn't mentioned it once she has said it 100 times, keep Sunday of Labour day weekend free for a BBQ at her house. Yes Cathy, I have not booked anything that day it is all yours. Thank-you!!! Yes Cathy I have also reserved that day for you but I was talking about adding another evening in there somewhere for all of us. Yeah!!

I have had a busy but family free week so far. As I mentioned earlier, the teenager is at camp this week as a camper (it is youth week and the last week of camp for the summer), the little one is at VBS and the husband is working (yeah) on the day shift. So the house is quiet during the day. I have gone and had a pedicure, hair cut, (I can't wait to see the new hair) teeth cleaned and did some shopping at Walmart and Chapters. I have also been working on the cafeteria business I proposed back at the end of the school year. I met with the principal and we discussed details. I will save all the nitty gritty for another blog. But looks like I might be self-employed as of the first day of school! (yeah!) Way to go Carolin, I hope to be employed by then or shortly after the start of school. Really, where??? Sounds like another new blog idea. By the way...what's happening with the story???

Remember when Louise's car wouldn't start. So, after church on Sunday we drove over to her house and the husband tried to boost it but it still wouldn't start. Then Louise's cousin came over with a new battery and the two men spent some time getting the old one out and putting the new one in. Guess What? The car started!!!!! Louise had such a look of relief on her face when the car started. I haven't spoke to her since so I hope it is still running smoothly. I hope we can talk and see her more once she gets her work shifts worked out and the kids soccer ends as that takes up almost every evening and weekends. I can't imagine, I am just to lazy and selfish to give up all my free time to drive my kids around. I am glad that Louise's van is fixed as I know how dependent I am on my vehicle. I did the crazy soccer and it did take up my entire summer last year with both girls and it kept us very busy and it was too expensive. Good for Louise for she just keeps going and going.

Have a great weekend!

I too should be off doing stuff. As well as talking to Insurance and public health about the business I am trying to get organized for a potluck I am hosting next Wednesday to kick of this years Ladie's book/bible study that starts in September. We are going to be doing a Beth Moore study and I am supposed to watch a couple of the sessions, as is KD for our meeting next Tuesday with the head of Ladie's ministry. I am hoping to blog about the study, so far it looks very interesting. Hey KD have you watched your dvds yet? Have a good one!




Yesterday, Hubby, the boys and I went down to the 'Beach' in Toronto. What a beautiful day! The sun was hot and it felt great! We walked along the boardwalk and just people watched. They had so many beach vollyball nets set up at Ashbridges Bay and they were being used. We had wanted to walk along the length of the Leslie spit, however, it turns out it is only open to the public after 5pm and on weekends. We were explaining to the boys that the Spit used to be a land bridge to the centre islands. Time eroded the 'bridge'. There was also terrible garbage and pollution. It is now a protected site for both wildlife and vegetation.

We walked through Kew Beach Park and then along Queen street. We ate lunch at 'Il Fornello', a pizza restaurant. It was very tasty! I had a pizza topped with prosciutto, artichokes, black olives and red peppers....talk about salt intake! I am now retaining about 4 pounds of water!I have only eaten there once and I had a mushroom pizza but it was too gourmet for me, 5 different types of mushrooms and there was some type that I did not like. I didn't eat it, my husband ended up having it. His was tastier then mine, but I can't remember what was on his. I am not a huge pizza lover and very rarely would ever order pizza at a resturant. But both of your pizza's sound good to me.



We drove home after lunch and had a dip in the pool. My sister and family came over for a dip and then we went to the 'Harry Potter' movie. Did you enjoy the movie? Yes we did although they did leave out huge chunks of the book! Tonight we are going for german food at, 'The Musket'. A very good german, bavarian restaurant in Etobicoke. You are making me very hungry. Is this the same german restaurant we went to a few years ago? Same one. I will have the Jaeger Schnitzel, with spaetzle and rotkohl. I have the samething everytime we go!


Have a good weekend all and stay tuned for the next posting of 'bench talk'...