Three Little Girls - And the Plague!

So of course having little girls, you get the good aswell as the bad.

The bad being the dreaded - HEAD LICE.

It only takes one poorly maintained head of a child in a school (and we're all acutely aware of this poor child whose mother seems completely oblivious, or just doesnt care that her child is utterly riddled with them, as helpfully pointed out by her child's classmates.. and has done nothing to treat it).

Letters have been sent home to all parents over the outbreak which is the worst ive seen it since my eldest started there in 2008.

Anyway, our first encounter of nits, head lice, whichever one you call it.. was a few months ago. I have always been extremely squeamish about these infestation bugs and always stated that should any of mine get it, they would be shipped to my mother immediately and go into quarantine until they had all disappeared.
Of course that didnt happen.
Instead once id taken a deep breath and confronted my fear, bought the relevant stuff and treated her, i was feeling a bit braver about it all.
One swift treatment and she was cured! I was a happy mum and we continued about our lives.

This was until last week when i noticed my youngest who has the longest, most tangly hair you can imagine, scratching her head. Uh Oh.
Yep, she was the next to fall victim to the dreaded critters. Except this was no easy task to tackle this time round.
Sophie being the most awkward yet loveable child there is, absolutely hates anyone to touch her hair. So you can imagine the battle i had with a nit comb and all that lovely long hair of hers. *sigh*
Still, we treated it with a well known brand of head lice treament, that had worked on my oldest, and were regularly combing through her hair every day or two but she was still scratching, and there was nothing coming out on the comb.
Today was day 7 since her last treatment and doing as i was told, i bought more solution to re-treat after the 7 day period. This time though i bought Full Marks Solution.

The above solution is the one we bought and i cannot recommend it enough.

15 minutes after putting it on her head (i always like to give it an extra few mins to work) i started to run the comb through Sophie's hair and was shocked, and disgusted at just how many lice and eggs i was pulling out of her hair.
I hadnt seen anything like it before, and they had all been safely hidden since last week when i did the first treatment!
Clearly the other one hadn't worked and they'd had an extra 7 days in which to breed and grow. And boy did they.
I lost count in the end, i just couldnt believe that the nit comb hadnt picked this up during all the times i stood there under a bright light, combing through her hair before each bedtime.
It took this solution to finally out the plague that is head lice.

Not only is this treatment expensive but it is incredibly repetitive, never ending and very frustrating when you have girls with lots of long, tangly hair, who wont stand still, and will howl, cry, scream, beg, plead and behave as though you are murdering her just to run a comb through her hair....

So i will continue on my quest to rid my girls completely, until the next time they catch it from said poor child at school, or someone else she has infected with her nest head.

My complaint will be going into the school first thing in the morning.


The Thing About Girls Is...

That I never imagined i would have three of them.
I think i was always meant to be a mum. My maternal instincts kicked in around 12 years of age when my uncle and his wife gave birth to the most gorgeous set of twin girls i had ever seen.
I was smitten! And did everything i could to move myself in with them to take care of their every need.

As they grew up, of course i did too. I took a Child Care & Education CACHE level 3 diploma in College and passed my exam with a satisfactory grade B.
I was also pregnant at 18 years of age with my first baby. Not the news that every parent wants to hear and mine were of the view that I had ruined my life before it had begun.
No travelling across the world for me anymore (New York has always been my dream), and i hadnt even been to Disney World yet! Add to the fact that i had been with John for all of 3 months, you can imagine the scenario.
For me though, this was the one thing i had always wanted, and i knew deep down that i would be a young mum. Its what i was made to do and it was all i enjoyed in life. As a little girl i made up stories and drew pictures of families with lots and lots of little girls in dresses with blonde hair and blue eyes. I played barbies endlessly with my cousin and would always have mum, dad and as many children as i could find to add to my little family.
So you could say i always wanted a big family and it was in my nature to achieve this.

Through half of my pregnancy i secretly hoped i would be having a girl, but told myself it was a boy so that i wouldnt be disappointed. On the day of the 20 week scan we all went in and when the sonographer asked us all what we thought baby was, we all guessed 'boy'. 'Actually', he said, 'Its a girl'. We went into shock, and I dont think John actually spoke for about an hour afterwards. I was rejoicing inside! A little girl, pink things! Lovely outfits and matching shoes were all running through my mind at this time.

Fast forward through each subsequent pregnancy and we now have three beautiful girls aged 7, 4 and 3 who go by the names of Tayla, Katie and Sophie.
I always assumed i would have one of each, i never thought i would end up with three of one gender and none of the other. But here we are in a world of pink.

The thing about girls is they are notoriously messy. Growing up with a brother, it was always my room that was trashed while his managed to remain mostly tidy. I now have three girls who all share a bedroom. We have untold amounts of mess each day. They get out everything they own and this can include three changes of clothes per child per day, all my shoes scattered up and down the hall where they have been parading in them, dress up clothes everywhere, barbies, dolls, teddys, and everything princess!

So here are some facts about little girls;

Girls love to bake. Cakes, biscuits, anything where they can use pretty sprinkles and pink icing.

Girls love to dress up! Any chance they get to don a princess dress and pretty shoes, (or a halloween costume) they will take it

Girls always squabble and worst of all - tell tales constantly! 'Mummy, Tayla pushed me!', 'Mummy, Katie wont let me have a tuuurn' and so on. Boys tend to roll around on the floor for a few minutes to settle their disputes but we have no such luck with girls

Girls love to be best friends and hold hands. I constantly get told who is best friends with who and when i do something wrong, i am no longer their best friend anymore.



But most of all girls love to be special, pretty and made to feel like a princess. They love nothing more than a good dress, a pair of shoes and mummys make up. Girls love to make nice things for their parents, pictures, cards and other handmade items, and most of all they love to recieve a hug and have a story read to them.

Having three little girls is not what i imagined and I constantly get people who delight in telling me to wait until I have three teen girls, and I must have my hands full, and do I want to try for a boy?
But i wouldnt change it for the world!