Lice and mice are not so nice

The two things I hate most, I've been battling this past week. Lice and mice. Yuk! On Thursday, after a really good week, my middle son was scratching his head, so I looked and sure enough...lice! I spent the rest of that night and the next day, treating hair then washing hair, bedding, and clothes all the while picking nits and spraying antiseptic. When you have 4 children, one child with lice is an epidemic waiting to happen. And of course, immediately my head starts itching, so I even treat myself.

On WebMD they say that you don't get lice because you are unclean. They also say that they don't jump and can't live for very long without a human host, but I don't believe it either. When I was growing up the word lice was whispered in hushed tones. My mother was paranoid about us getting it and was vigilant about not letting us wear hats or share brushes and combs. Her paranoia, founded or not, has rubbed off and me, and I hate lice. To my knowledge, none of us kids growing up ever had them but my mother still hated them. I have experienced the mayhem and work they cause a couple of times and having done so, I really, really HATE them.

The other thing I hate to deal with is mice. Our family lives in a brand new neighborhood and with all the construction, etc. we have been battling field mice since we moved in last July. They have been in the garage, so we set traps and have caught several. I haven't like having them in the garage, but since I haven't seen any signs of them in the house, I've just accepted it as life. That all changed on Friday. It was smaller than a pink pearl eraser and it was loose in my house. Some guys had been working in our attic and left the access open, thereby giving the mouse an open doorway TO MY HOUSE! The boys chased it into a closet and were able to catch it in a cup. My soft-hearted son, Nathan, couldn't kill it, so he took it down the street to let it go, against my loud objections that it would just come back. He named it Coke because he let it go near a coke can. Less than a 1/2 hour later Coke's brother scampered out of the access (that's when we realized it was open and closed it firmly). Once again, Nathan was able to catch and release; this one he named Liberty for the name of the trap I was now setting INSIDE MY HOUSE!

The weekend has been quiet, Derek is lice and nit free and we've not seen any signs of our four legged enemies. Oh, the kids just came and told me that Coke or maybe it's Liberty is in one of the traps in the garage. AH! HA! Sweet victory.