This theme began on a Thursday in mid-February. As my oldest was at school and my younger two were napping, my BFF sent me a text. My heart sank as I read that she had just discovered lice in her daughter's hair (as her little girl was lying on the couch overcome with the stomach flu. Did I mention that this was my said BFF's birthday?). Our daughters attended preschool together and had spent the prior afternoon playing with one another. I had to google lice to even know what to look for in her hair. She awoke just a few minutes later and I dragged her over to the window to use the best light. No lice in her long, thick hair... just hundreds of nits (lice eggs). Ugh. I found nothing in my youngest's curly head of hair after his nap. Now we waited for #1 to get home. After a quick search on his head (and finding nothing), we drove across town to the only pharmacy around here that sells Lice Ice. We had learned from a speaker at MOPS the year before that Lice Ice is an herbal remedy that can also be diluted and used in a precautionary manner. I bought them out and delivered some to our friends' home. This thick blue gel is applied to the hair at bedtime and left in overnight, when it is supposed to harden around the nits (or any bugs in the hair). When washed out in the morning, the goal is to wash and/or comb out all the little nits and dead bugs. I treated everyone that night, despite only finding nits in #2's hair. Unfortunately, the yummy smelling shampoo I normally use on her hair also has conditioner in it. And that, my friends, caused the nits to somehow adhere themselves onto her hair like super glue. Yep. I washed everything I could possibly wash in the hottest possible water all night and into the next day. Friday night we treated with Nix (traditional lice shampoo) just to be sure we'd killed everything. Saturday morning I spent over two hours sitting on the side of #2's bathtub with her, combing through every strand, and literally plucking out every strand of hair that had a nit on it. I'm certain I pulled out at least 200 pieces of her beautiful hair. Had I not been so vain, I'd have quickly shaved my daughter's head. The good news? We never did find a live louse in our home. I did spot two dead ones in the bathtub, but better dead than alive! I often pray that we never have to deal with that again. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Many of my close friends and family heard me mutter during those three horrible days, "I'd rather have all three children puking at the same time than ever deal with lice again." Be careful what you wish for, right? Only a week or so later, #3 came down with the stomach flu (in the middle of the night, of course). Guess what? He'd caught it from my BFF's youngest. I told her that it was a good thing I loved her and her family so much, or I'd have to cut off all contact with them. ;) He was sick off and on for about 24 hours (this also started on a Thursday). By Friday evening, as I read to my oldest at bedtime, I knew I was going to be sick. My bug also lasted 24 hours. Our oldest developed his by lunchtime Sunday afternoon (most unfortunately, he was at local coffee shop with a chess coach when it hit him... and most everything on the table). His bug did not linger, thankfully. And finally, #2 came down with it Sunday night. She got hit the worst (poor girl). I again had to wash her bedding over and over. Sigh. After two nights of her getting sick (and me trying to sleep with her up in her twin sized loft bed), she eventually felt better. I kept waiting for my husband to be stricken, but he escaped the bug. Probably because he did not do any of the cleaning up of children. While the three children never actually vomited at the same time, having four of the five of us get sick within as many days was not a joy.
Happy to see the month of February end, we had no idea that more bugs would pester us. Spring came very early due to a mild winter, and for the first time in our nine years living in this home, we found ourselves with an ant infestation. They were somehow entering near our patio door and very much enjoying the never-ending pile of crumbs under our breakfast table. My husband made it his mission in life to rid our breakfast area of these little nuisances. A few "ant-b-gone" hotels and a trail of sticky ant-icide gel along the bottom of our patio door later, and they were all gone. However, nine months later, we cannot seem to get rid of the remaining sticky gel. Thank goodness it is clear.
Not long after the ant episode, I had an awful nightmare that our home was being destroyed by termites. As we live in Iowa, termites are not a common problem and our bi-monthly pest control expert assured me that it was not an issue I needed to lose sleep over. Whew!
Fast forward to late summer... The kids had played outside as much as possible every day. We hadn't been anywhere special (or especially woody) when I discovered a tick on my daughter's head. Yes, she seemed to get the brunt of all these bugs! I got it pulled out, along with a fair sized chunk of her scalp, and photographed him (her?) for research purposes before flushing it down the toilet. Happily, I found that it was a wood tick, which is the most common variety around here and rarely carries disease. I kept a close eye on her and the area where it had latched on, but she never had any side effects of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (the one disease they rarely carry). Because I know you all love pictures, I had to include a photo of the little bugger. If you look closely enough, you can even see her skin in its teeth (*shuddering*). Lovely.
Moving right along, we experienced an overwhelming number of fruit flies brought into our home with bananas we'd purchased this fall (along with almost everyone else we knew). We tried various methods of getting rid of them (i.e. spraying Raid in the general direction of the fruit bowl - sans fruit, placing a small bowl of cider vinegar on the counter to attract them, putting vinegar down the garbage disposal and drain in the kitchen sink where they supposedly breed), but found that the following worked the best... We put a small piece of overripe banana in a Dixie cup, covered it with plastic wrap, and poked one small hole in the plastic with a toothpick. We were amazed and sickened by how many fruit flies found their way in through that hole. Apparently, they're not bright enough to get out the way they got in, so once we had a fair number of them caught we tossed the whole thing in our garbage bin in the garage and repeated the process. Problem solved after two or three cups. Also, I ceased buying fresh bananas and resorted to thawing frozen bananas for our daily smoothies.
Thought we were home free once it finally froze outside. And then we traveled to the Dominican Republic with my husband's parents, siblings, and all of their families. I'd read about some awful fever/disease we could acquire if bitten by a particular kind of mosquito-like bug, and we did have to resort to bug spray if we were out after dark. No vicious fevers overtook us, thankfully. But, mid-way through the trip, I took our two youngest back to our room for bed after dinner. I had #3 asleep in one room, and #2 was quietly coloring while I took out my contacts and got myself ready for bed. I saw something out of the corner of my eye in the bathroom... never a good sign, right? Yep, cockroach. Fairly big one, too. I attempted to keep my screaming to a minimum so as not to frighten #2 or awaken #3, as I did my best to corner it. With no luck. It hid under the toilet for a while. When I finally scared it out of there, I tried spraying it with our bug spray, hoping it might at least slow it down. Nope. It did, however, scuttle out of the bathroom and attempted to escape into the bedroom where #3 was fast asleep. Thank the Lord, the doors were sliders and it wouldn't fit underneath the door. Instead, it quickly crawled up somehow into the cabinet that held the mini bar. While I panted for breath and tried to slow my heartbeat, I stuffed towels all around the cabinet, hoping to contain The Bug. Needless to say, we never again opened the refrigerator that week (luckily, it hadn't really been keeping anything cold anyway). Never saw The Bug again, but I'm sure it lives. I also couldn't get the annoying song, "La Cucaracha" out of my head the rest of the trip. What kind of person writes a song about such a disgusting bug??? Because we had been keeping several of our suitcases and shoes on the floors of the rooms, we vowed to not take any of our belongings into our house until they'd been thoroughly frozen. We rejoiced to discover that it was well below freezing when we returned home. Everything stayed out on the patio for over 24 hours before being brought back in the house and washed. The children were also bathed immediately upon entering the house.
I now have the heebie-jeebies after recalling all of these events. As you can imagine, I am not sad to see The Year of the Bugs come to an end. It does seem that 2013 is already bringing its share of uncertainty and stress, but I'll take it. I'd be happy if I never saw another bug aside from butterflies, ladybugs, fireflies, or big, fat, bumblebees out in our flower gardens. Wishing you a bug-free 2013. Letter F soon to come!
*For those new to my blog, check out the beginnings of ABC Summers here.*
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