Can you imagine not wanting to hug your child(ren)? As a Mum who spends hours every day hugging and  kissing her girls it is a very strange and upsetting feeling but that is exactly how I feel right now. You see Poppy keeps catching head lice and I really don’t want to put my head too close to hers.

It is going around her Class at preschool. She picked it up on the first day back after Easter and although we noticed and treated it immediately (before any eggs were laid),  other parents are obviously not doing the same.

At the moment I am spending hours combing through her hair 3 x daily with the nit comb – first thing in the morning, when she gets back from Preschool and before she goes to bed. For two weeks we have only used a nit comb on her hair.

Every few days I wash her hair with a head lice repellent shampoo and then smother it all in conditoner which I comb through again before rinsing away.

I am also using a head lice repellant spray.

She goes to School every day with no lice, her hair scraped back tightly in a hair bun with repellant all over it.

Most days she comes back with lice again….it has been any number between 7 and 30!

So how am I feeling about it honestly?

Well despite knowing that lice go to both clean and dirty hair, I feel like someone’s dirty little child is contaminating my my gorgeous, clean Daughter.

I feel angry towards the parents of the child for not noticing or caring enough to get rid of them properly -To catch the number she is, someone’s child must be crawling in them!

I feel as though the School are not doing enough and that makes me frustrated. I know they have sent several letters out but this obviously not doing the trick. In my day they used to have nit nurses go into School but apparently they don’t do this any more and the Teachers are not allowed to look.

I feel sorry for Poppy who has to sit through hours of having her hair combed instead of quality time playing with and hugging Mummy.

I feel as though our family have been contaminated, are dirty, infested.

I feel itchy!

To be perfectly honest, I feel like not sending her to Preschool.

On top of this, Rosie is starting to get jealous about the amount of attention Poppy is getting. Another problem I could do without. Oh and I found 5 in her hair today too. It is so not funny. Have you ever tried to get a 21 month old to sit still and have her hair combed through properly? Luckily she doesn’t appear to have any eggs but I will keep checking.

I don’t want to hold back from my little girls. I want to keep my head next to their’s and hear them breathing on me. I want to snuggle right in and enjoy every minute we have together.

So what can I do about it? What would you do about it? All advice welcomed.

Karen x