The following is from a school newsletter a reader sent along. To all the responsible parents, school staff, medical people, daycare providers, church staff, etc., Wacky Mommy says THANKS for dealing with your lice and NOT BEING A JERK, I appreciate it.

No, we don’t have lice again, but my head is still itching from last spring.

I recommend you save this letter, crib from it, and circulate it if and when you ever need to. May you never need to.

love,
WM

Head Lice

A Plan for EnLICEnment…

Hello parents and guardians of our beloved students! It’s head lice season. Hats, scarves, costumes, cuddly blankets and pillows. Warmth is good. Cuddling is good. Head lice? Not good.

There is a lot of misinformation out there for the parent – or teacher – who discovers the critters on the head of a child – or children. How did they get there? How do I get rid of them? Who can I talk to?

The answers are now being put out there for all to easily see!

Our school library now has four or five books for kids that teachers or parents can check out, to tell their kids about head lice. There are also a couple of books for caregivers explaining how to get rid of them. Soon there will be a binder with information in many languages that teachers can photocopy and send home with students.

Everyone and anyone can -and do- get head lice. They are persistent little pests. Getting rid of them is not as easy as just a shampoo – you must comb and comb and treat and comb some more, washing tons of laundry and putting non-washables in plastic bags and vacuuming and – whew! It is work; several days of hard work. There are many parents at the school
who have had to deal with it. Those of you who would be willing to be on a list, available by phone to help a newly nitpicking parent, please e-mail me, and I will make that list available. Then, when you are in the throes of it, you can call me or another mama and we’ll try to help.

Some brief info:

Not surprisingly, chemical shampoos actually may NOT work well, especially as directed. Contrary to myth, olive oil, coconut oil, tea
tree oil, and mayonnaise CAN work. This is good news for our environmentally-minded families! And there is more good news! You can actually take steps to prevent getting head lice.

The obvious things: don’t share hats, pillows, combs, hair ornaments, etc. (be sure your kid has bike helmet at school, for example, so they do not have to borrow).

The other things: use tea tree oil shampoo; when someone in your class has head lice, start checking your child each day for several days. Make a spritz of water with seven drops each tea tree oil, lavender oil, and rosemary oil, and spray your child’s hair – and your own – thoroughly and allow to dry. Smells good to humans – wards off head lice!

The district website, sadly, pooh-poohs the use of natural oils (which I can personally vouch for). This chart shows the efficacy of the chemicals out there: It may surprise you.

Head Lice to Dead Lice

For really good information, I also recommend:
Head Lice Info
Alt Medicine
Hints and Things
Harvard Edu

So… start prevention and detection now! Check your head, too! And TALK to other parents about it. The school district says that there should be no stigma about it, since anyone can get it; in the same breath they encourage ‘discretion’ so that kids with it don’t get made fun of! Discretion, shame, and secrecy only perpetuate the stigma. Let’s be informed. Use the books and materials in the library. Use natural oils. Call parents who have been through it. Don’t panic. Be enLICEned.

Thanks,

Responsible Mom

I was mean about it when the Florida Room moved in. You know, I was all, just what Jefferson High School needs — a bar across the street.

They even had some protesters from Jeff and elsewhere in the neighborhood show up at one point. (The “Church of the Bloody Mary” sign did come down, which many of us appreciated.)

But when the shootings happened, after the Jeff football game, homecoming and dance on Friday? Who was the first out on the street? The EMT-trained kitchen staff from the Florida Room. (BlackFriend left a note in comments). She says, “They wanted to make sure the kids were all right.”

That touches the heart of even a bitchy cynic like myself.

Thanks, you guys.

My better half, in Willamette Week (our town’s weekly) here. Foghat? Take a look if you haven’t already.

PPS loses $1.1 million (or more)? I misplace my keys occasionally, and my mind, but that much money? No, I keep an eye on money.

Crazy Big Sister is Wacky Girl’s best friend. (Crazy Baby Sister is younger than Wacky Boy, but already a force to be reckoned with. Who needs words when you can gesture, shriek, throw pizza, then smile winningly so everyone goo-goos at you? She is a dolly. I want to nibble on her.) CBS has straight dark hair; WG has straight blonde hair. They’re both long-legged and coltish. They think boys are stupid. They think gum is good. They like to play tricks. They’re brilliant at reading and math. They met playing soccer two years ago. They were in first grade together. They were in second grade together. If they’re not in third grade together — I don’t want to think about it. They’re both a little… quirky.

When I ask them a question, for instance “Who broke this?” they don’t have to get their stories straight first. They have some kind of mind-meld going. CBS usually takes the lead. (more…)

I’m definitely in the mood for Thursday Thirteen this week. Oh. Man. Has it been a looooooong school year or is it just me? I thought we had one of the shortest school years in the nation? Oh, all those Wednesdays and Thursdays off, I guess they mean. They add up.

Yesterday wasn’t the last day of school for my kids (who are now proud to be kindergarten and third grade students-in-waiting), but it sure felt like it. It was field day! Water balloons, dumping buckets of water on each other, the long dash, the frisbee toss… fun.

13. Goodbye, Bruno. I hope over the summer you learn to stop stabbing yourself with scissors. I also kinda hope you try out a different school. One where they have more counselors? (more…)

(from April 18th, 2006… I can’t find this in the archives, so here it is again, with comments attached.)

Really, need I say more? I don’t think so. I think the hedder suffices. But if your need to know is pressing, like the concrete backer board that was pressing against my legs this morning, here you…

There was a school district/neighborhood summit over at Humboldt Elementary last night. First the mucky-mucks from the district bored the shit out of us with yet another PowerPoint demo. (What is it with the People in Charge and their love for PowerPoint?) Really, this was their first mistake. Because people are affected by PowerPoint in one of three ways 1) They assume it will give them Power! And more Power! And they ride the fucking six pack, to quote, who? Green River? Yes! (Or “Something!” as Wacky Girl would say 2) They are bored to sleep 3) They get pissed off and the tension in the room grows. 3) Is what happened last night.

So the district is all it’ll be great! Humboldt has high test scores! Ockley Green (the school where Humboldt students would transfer) has low scores! You can help! No, it’s soooooooo not because this is a poor neighborhood. No, nothing to do with race. It’ll be fantastic, just wait!

And the House said: No. Not amen. No. No, no, no. We don’t like the adult porn store right across the street from OG. We don’t like our kids having to walk a long, long ways to get to school. We don’t like having to drive them to OG when they can walk to Humboldt. We don’t like being told what to do. No, no, no. Everyone went nuts. It is an interesting night when Wacky Mommy is the calmest person in the room. And we were on the 11 o’clock news, so that was cool. Take that, school district.

My favorite speaker of the evening was the Humboldt student, a young man, who said, All I can say now is that you guys are doing something really stupid. Period. Which of course made everyone cheer and stamp their feet.

Now today, the contractor arrives. Not the one who needs to finish repairing the floor. Mister “I needed an eight-foot board and they only cut me seven-and-a-half. I’ll be back. Or someone will. I’ll call the supervisor and he can call your husband.” No, it wasn’t the floor guy. It was the tile guy, with a delivery.

He stacked boxes of tiles, bags of Versabond, plastic sheeting, caulk, all this shit in my office. But they can’t do the tile, see, until the floor guy is done. But I’m being open-minded and all. I’m thinking, The tile, she is here! But what to do with the backer board? The guy stacks it on the front porch, tells us, If it rains it’ll need to be covered with a tarp, or it’ll get ruined, then leaves.

It rains a lot here.

He left the tarp on the table on the front porch. Can you see where this is going? I’m thinking, It’s sunny — it’s not going to rain — followed by, This is Portland, Oregon. The only time it doesn’t rain here is July 15 through Sept. 22. Roughly. So I throw the tarp over the shit (nine fucking heavy ugly concrete backer boards) and am tucking it in around the edges when it topples. On my legs. Pinning me. Turns out he had them propped Way Too Vertical. Fucking asshole idiot contractor.

Yet here I am, writing. Do you believe in miracles? Yes! No, I don’t, not so much. But I do believe in Roadmaster Trikes, cuz that’s what the boards landed on, thus saving me from the life of a parapalegic. It torqued the seat but didn’t crush it. This is the power of Roadmaster. Jesus God, your life really does flash before your eyes, it’s true. I yelled for the neighbor (not the Naked One, she wasn’t home. The Nasty One on the other side, whose house is closer) and she came over and helped me extricate myself. This makes her the Not-So-Nasty-Neighbor, no?).

Then I called, in order, the contractors, You frickin’ need to finish the bathroom right now. My legs were almost crushed. And bring my kid a new trike, ya idiot; my best friend Zip, who said, Jesus, what if it had been one of the kids? which made me cry harder, because of course that thought was already going through my head over and over and over and over; and Hockey God, who said, Did they get broken? (referring to the backer boards, not my legs, thus prompting me to hang up on him).

He realized the severity of the incident when the contractors actually called him before he had a call in to them, saying something like, Guy is on his way out, sorry we almost killed your wife, or something.

Prompting him to call me, without being asked, and asking me, Are your legs OK?

They’re OK. Thanks for asking. And thank God it wasn’t one of the kids.

2 Comments
1. edj says: I wanted to say something witty, but really, I’m just so glad you’re ok! But I have to say, will you stop at nothing to get your floor finished?

2. Heather says: Dang! I am so glad you are ok! And thank God and the Baby Jesus that it was not one of the kids although I certainly would have preferred not you either! Oh, and the whole Jefferson cluster thing just makes me throw up my hands in the air *what-are-they-thinking*! — Hugs, Heather

Wacky Girl: “Let’s watch South Park.”

me: “No.”

Honestly — you have to show some kind of control, occasionally.

We sent our kids back to school yesterday for the first time in two weeks. My son, my husband and I have not had… I can’t say the word anymore. The situation. We have not had the situation do a little merry buggy dance on our heads. Although if you asked anyone at the school or in our neighborhood, they’d tell you, oh, yeah, they all four had it, it was terrible.

No, it has just been one problem scalp here.

My girl — my girl who refuses to let us shave her head, or clipper cut it — my girl has been clear of the situation since Tuesday, April 10th. That’s when she was clear of adult bugs, nits and anything resembling them. My girlfriend L, and really, God love her for doing this, picked eggs off my daughter’s head on Monday, April 9th. She had a couple of dead nits on her head on Friday, April 13th.

So technically, as of yesterday a.m. we have been “situation-free” for thirteen days. That’s 13. Can I say that more LOUDLY? Almost two weeks. We were in okay shape. I thought. I combed through her hair yesterday with tea tree oil, found nothing, braided it and sent her off. The school secretary (because our school nurse is only there two days a week) checked her out, thoroughly. All clear.

She comes home with an adult louse on her head, several nits and lots of eggs. (The Internet, in unison: Duh.) The principal refuses to check heads, refuses to send a “we have lice” letter home, (although they did send home a generic “here’s what to do if you have them” letter), refuses to pick up the phone and call parents.

We’re not going back to school this year.

Can you even deal with another post on lice? The whole thing — the social stigma, the health consequences of kids getting pesticides dumped on their heads over and over (pesticides that don’t always work. The nurse I talked with says there is a lot of concern among the traditional medical community because the pesticides — Rid, Nix, etc. aren’t strong enough for whatever SuperLouse is out there)… my anger at parents who intentionally send their kids to school lousy. Who refuse to pick up the phone and say, “I’m sorry, but my kid has lice, and we didn’t know when we came to your place for the sleepover/playdate/birthday party…” My anger at the school district and the staff, for letting this problem get out of hand. ONE KID CAN INFEST A WHOLE CLASS, SEE? I am no genius here, but one goddamn louse is all it takes.

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Reviewed today:

Dear Principal of Lousy School:
Yes, I know that y’all miss my kids. Thanks for the call yesterday. They are well-behaved children and don’t cause a ruckus. But you gave us lice. We might come back next week, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. In the future, please send home a letter when you are lousy. Or at least call. Or at least check heads. Anything less is… irresponsible. Which is not a skill we want to learn at school or at home.

Here’s to being a grown-up,
WM

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