One of THOSE days...or weeks...

***read at own risk....complaining to start in 5,4,3,2,....

Two weeks ago Mark got sick. Lost his voice, cramped muscles, hot flashes (yes there was teasing involved on this one). Well, he is STILL sick. I am used to handling the house while he is away at school, work, errands, play...but honestly, it is hard to run a household when your spouse is sick :( He has been a good sport and helping when he feels less sick so life has been moving slowly day by day. THEN....

On Thursday night at bath time I found lice on Kels head. Not just one or two, but dozens and dozens. I couldn't believe that I didn't catch it before it got SO bad. I didn't even see it when I did her hair that morning. Of course, I've never seen it before, so even if I did see it, I wouldn't have known what it was ><. So Mark pulled himself up and went to Walmart to get meds while I got online (with ALL the girls sanctioned in the tub) and tried to figure out what to do. I thought lice was pretty common, but seriously, there is little helpful info out there. Or maybe I am the first to wonder how long can the eggs (not just Lice) can stay alive after off the host? or can they be transfered by plastic items or is it just fiberous things they can cling to? or why are some white and some brown, are they both the same type of lice? or will the medicated shampoo keep working after its rinsed off or do we have to use the shampoo every day?...If you know the answers, feel free to let me know.

So when Mark got home (at 7pm), we re-washed the girls and applied the medicated shampoo, tried to get them to sit for 10min for it to set, sent an email out to everyone we could think of to warn them about the lice, then stuck on Star Wars and one by one, combed out thier hair. Hoping we were taking out what we thought were the bugs and the eggs. It was almost midnight before we were done with just combing out thier hair. We then got the sleeping bags out and they camped in the living room (after I completely vacuumed the carpet, couch, and cat tree and wiped down all hard sufaces with Lysol wipes). While they slept, Mark and I striped all the beds and put EVERYTHING in trash bags to be washed. I never realized how many blankets and pillows we all have. There was about 15 trash bags full of things to be washed. Then we had to collect all the stuffed animals and bag them too. Luckily, I could just through those into the garage and wait for the little buggers to die. Again, I didn't realize how many animals these kids own. I guess I SHOULD let Mark take some to the shooting range like he's been wanting to do :).

So we took care of the beds and animals...we're done right? HAHA NOOO. Then we collected all the dress up things, towels, wash clothes, hair bands, brushes and combes, baby doll clothes and blankets, soft cat toys, and play rugs in each of thier rooms and bagged those. We might as well just have boxed everything to get ready to move...thats basically what we were doing anyway. Mark was very tempted to get a hotel for a few nights and deal with it there (lice only live up to 3 days when not on a person) but we didn't. I guess the house could have used a good cleaning anyway. (This is when we read my last post to remind us that we should be happy).

THEN...the next morning, I was going to medicate myself (luck Mark just shaved his head) and noticed that we had no hot water. Turns out our water heater broke and it wasn't until 4pm when I could shower and actually start cleaning everything we bagged. So basically all Friday we sat around, played Wii, watched movies we've seen too many times, and re checked the girls hair ever hour picking out bugs we missed before. Thankfully Mark went to KFC for dinner so I didn't have to think about that. When bed time rolled around, the girls hair was basically clean. I think Brooke is the only one who needs a re-wash. Hopefully it will stay that way. I mean, how do you keep the kids away from each other in a small apt.?

THEN...at 11:30pm Mark came back from checking on the church building to find vomit all down the hall, covering Brooke and Kels room and all over Brooke and her sleeping bag. And she was sound asleep. So we had another night of late night baths and cleaning. At 3am, Shayna (who found her way into my bed), woke me up to tell me she threw up all over my bed. Mark was up with Brooke already so together we got her cleaned and re-situated. Mark (graciously) volunteered to stay up with them. So at about 7am, he came to wake me up for my "shift".

That brings us to today. Typically, the 2 sick kids are the first to wake up and want to eat ><. I spent the day checking and re-checking the kids heads, being an insane vacuumer (is that a word?) and trying to keep Brooke and Shay away from the others. Its not even 3pm and I'm ready to start our bed time routine and get them in bed lol. This has seriously been the most exhausting thing I've had to deal with in a long time. I don't wish lice on anyone. I have about 4 bags left to wash (along with our normal laundry) and I still need to really scrub the carpet to get the vomit smell out (sorry, I'm sure you didn't need to know that).

On the bright side, we have a new water heater, the kids hair is now squeaky clean, our beds are beautiful, our counter tops and floors are spotless, there are no toys out of place, the tubs are sparkling, Brooke moved from 11th place to 5th place in Mario Kart Wii, Kelsie got a 195 in Wii bowling putting her in 2nd place after Marks score of 203, Shayna has mastered golf (yes its a video game, but still), Becca is pacifier free!, I haven't had to tell them they can't go swimming because of the smokey air, and we have just about memorized the script to Harry Potter 1. So even though it has been an insane couple of days, there are some good things to focus on :)