The battle has been won

Well after a third comb out of KT's hair I think I might have just about obliterated the lice.

I also combed through uni's hair last night and he did mine.  No sign of hostile life!!!

I will probably do one more on tuesday (that will be one combing for every two days for almost a week) and I think that will do it.

There are no fresh bites on KT's head and behind her ears are back to normal skin colour.

Take that you horrible beasts!!!

Today I went swimming and arrived at the pool to find the carpark was packed with cars.  I had noticed an orange witches hat with a sign taped to it out on the road in front of the pool so I drove past to read what it said to see if it would give me any clues as to why the carpark was so busy.

The sign said "keep clear school buses and vehicles excepted"   ......

Oh Oh .... SCHOOL BUSES?????

Hmmmm that explained it.

I almost turned around and went home then and there but decided I would just find out what was going on.

As I drove back into the carpark I saw two guys leave the pool and I thought .... hmmm I wonder if they are kicking people out to make way for the school kids.

I went in and saw that the kids were young primary school kids and they looked to only be in the small pool.  I chatted to the lady behind the counter and she said that a couple of lanes in the big pool were reserved for the school kids but the rest were available to the public.

I peered through the curtain to see how busy the main pool was and it looked fairly clear so I decided to risk it.

As it turns out there was only one man in there (and he usually just bobs about in the little pool ... but obviously was not able to do that today).  There had been a lady too but she hopped out as I arrived ... and before long the man left too and I had the big pool all to myself!!

There was a LOT of background noise from the kids, but I was undisturbed (especially with earplugs in) and I was a little worried that at any time some of them could spill over into the big pool ... but that may not happen for a few weeks ... particularly not with the younger kids.

As I swam there was a changeover of classes.... and a whole new batch of brightly suited kids with goggles appeared!

In a few weeks KT will be starting her swimming with school too, but that will happen at a different pool.  It did give me a preview though of what she might face ... although it looked as if there were only 2 or 3 coaches in the water with a very large number of kids, whereas the pool where KT will be going will have 1 teacher to 6-8 kids for the younger grades, and 1 teacher for every 8-10 kids for the older grades.

Very tired now ... has been a very physical day ....

Oh forgot to mention that in the pool today I practised the drills that Cameron got KT's swim class to do on Saturday.  I found them quite helpful and challenging.

They were :-

• .... using a kickboard, do ten kicks then come up for a breath at the front.
• ... do 4 arms and breathe after the fourth arm ... well neither KT or I could make it to four arms, we had to breathe on the third arm, and that meant that we are both learning to breath on both sides instead of just the right side.
• I also tried doing 10 kicks, holding the kickboard and breathing to the side while doing that sides' arm stroke too.

combing out hair lice

Ok well this post is about reminding myself what to do and how to do it as I have an unbelieveable habit of forgetting things too quickly or only vaguely remembering.

I looked for a video on combing out hair lice on the internet to help me out and this gave me a few tips that were lacking in other written guides.

The first thing to do is to smother your dry hair in a thick conditioner.  This apparently surrounds and "stuns" but does not kill the head lice and renders them immobile for long enough for you to catch them in your comb.

You have to first comb through the hair with a normal comb to get out as many tangles as possible and make the job easier and less painful for the person being groomed.

Then you use a lice comb which is a metal comb with thick metal teeth that are very close together.  You are supposed to section off the hair and comb through each bit at a time.

The very important thing to remember is to go from as close as possible to the scalp and all the way down the hair shaft.  This removes lice and eggs.  The lice like to stay close to the scalp where they feed and they lay their eggs about an inch down the hair shaft.  So when you start from the scalp and work your way down you have the greatest chance of success.

When you have done one comb stroke you need to wipe the comb off on a tissue or paper towel.  Most of the time what you wipe off will be a whole stack of conditioner but every so often there will also be some very small specks which are brownish.  They look to me like those cyclist helmets that you see at the olympics that kind of have a long thin tail at the back.  I'm not sure if these are small lice or eggs, but ... The really big lice are bigger ....I mistook one for a flea, and the larger they are the more you can see of their "legs" or pincers.

Remember to comb starting from all parts of the scalp, including the start of the hairline at the nape of the neck and from directly behind the ears.

The other tip is to clip up the bits of hair that you have already done so that you systematically work through all the hair and don't miss any.  I don't think it matters if you do some parts more than once, but missing some is more of a problem.

I got lots of stuff today and one very major large louse. 

The tissues with lice on them can be thrown in the bin.

I will do more combing on Sunday and am hoping that there will be less of everything coming out ... indicating that we are winning the war.

I will also comb Uni's hair and get him to do mine.  I suspect that because I have been regularly using shampoo and conditioner with tea tree oil in it I have been less susceptible than everyone else ... but it would not hurt to get combed and confirm this.

Fun times ahead!

PS the lice killing stuff I have been using is nitwits lice foam and its main ingredients are tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil.  I think it has been effective but because I did not comb out the eggs the first time after using the treatment I undermined its effectiveness.

50m freestyle

Today I had the pool to myself for the first 25 of my 30 minutes swimming!

I also swam for the first time ever a full 50m of freestyle (with flippers on), without stopping, having problems with my breathing, or swallowing any water.

When I stopped I didn't feel like I was out of air, but of course it did take me a while to catch my breath and my heart was racing like you would not believe!  I know the breathing statement sounds like a contradiction but it is like if you are running to catch a bus, you are breathing while you run and you are in no danger of running out of air, but when you stop your heart is racing and you need to catch your breath.

I painted another fence panel today ... unfortunately I got quite sunburnt doing it.   I am up to the inclined part of the fence now and I have to climb a chair, or the water tanks, or the fence to reach the very top parts I have to paint.

I have settled into a rhythym of painting from the top of one paling, right down including crossbeams as I come to them, then moving to the next paling and starting at the bottom of it and working up all the way to the top, then from the top down on the next paling and then the bottom up on the next paling etc.

This means I don't "lose my place" and don't end up painting the same paling twice.  It also means I am constantly changing my position so I don't get stuck crouched down or stretching up for long periods at a time.

This afternoon I will comb the lice eggs out of KT's hair and probably again in 2 days etc etc.

We did our 3rd lice treatment last night after KT had lots of bloody spots all over her scalp.  As I speak Uni is washing the treatment out of his hair too.

Why oh why have they gotten rid of the spellchecker function???

Or has it moved somewhere that I have not discovered yet?

success with "New"

hooray this is perfect!

Off to swimming now

very tired

I came here to write tonight but I am very tired .....

Uni is on holiday and I have had a big day.  He woke up bright and early this morning and took the dog for a beach walk!

I painted the fence ... I'm flying through it now ... the end is in sight ... aiming to be done before the heat of summer ... I think I might be repeating myself ... but no time to go back and read what I have written before ....

I also watered the garden.  It has not rained in any serious amounts for nearly 2 months.  I stopped using KT's bath water on the garden, opting to wait for rain, but now there is not much bright colourful life in my garden (although everything is bravely hanging on), so I am back to carting buckets of water through the house and down the stairs and into the garden until it does finally rain properly again!

I am building up some muscles!

A few nights ago Uni said that my belly felt tight and that my arms feel muscly.  Am surprised at how much pleasure I got out of those statements!  I have been swimming for 7 weeks now ... I guess that is enough time for some muscles to develop. It is definitely much more of a workout than bellydancing although if I had taken bellydance practice as seriously as swimming practice perhaps it would have been too.

I did some ironing while we watched a movie together at lunchtime, then made KT's sandwiches for school for the rest of the week, and made tonight's dinner.

I went to swimming class tonight and there were a full 8 students ... roughly one lane each.

There was another newby to the swimming class ... Leslie who apparently has been learning with Jennie in the 18 metre pool and made her debut into the big pool tonight.  She was swimming with a kick board and is very much a beginner also, so I will keep an eye on her progress with interest.

I spent a lot of time on butterfly tonight ... concentrating more on the arms and even tried to incorporate a breath.  It is funny how skills or ability come in a flash, then disappear, then come back in a flash again.  The movements for butterfly are becoming familiar, and I have now seen Jennie demonstrate them enough that I have a "movie" of how they should go running in my head.

I can also see the similarities between the strokes and how certain principles apply to all even though they are different.

Today I also stumbled on the fact that at night when the lights are on I can look down and see the shadow of my arm movements on the bottom of the pool.  This means I can "watch" what my arms are doing (in freestyle) as well as "feeling" what they are doing, while my head remains looking right down (correct head position).

My shadow's movement looks smooth and graceful!!!!  I have noticed my bellydancing shadow looks the same way!!!! This creates a positive feedback loop because I watch what I am doing, I do it better because I can see I am doing a good job and concentrate more on doing it right.

I wonder what I will do in the day time ......

I haven't had the swirly eye thing happen for over a week so I think my body has adjusted to whatever it needed to adjust too.

I am very sleepy though and I think I need an early night.

Goodnight to all

... And my final note is that I have enjoyed reading more frequent blog entries this past week!