Bringing Nature Home With Us

One week ago we were camping.

One week ago my boys were playing in the woods, running, wrestling, climbing, and any other activity little boys can think of to do in the outdoors.

One week ago I was playing with Evan's hair and noticed something, a tick. Ticks freak me out! Ticks are right up there with heights, public speaking and rats. Ask Jed.

Fortunately Jamie was there, Jamie lived in Bolivia, ticks aren't even a blip on her radar. She removed the tick for Evan and then she and I both combed his head over for any more of the disgusting things. We found nothing.

Fast forward to today. The boys have been playing together in the florida room all morning. Kane's in this stage where he thinks its a good idea to throw toys at his brothers. He hit Seth in the eye with a metal plane the other day causing a blood vessel to pop, it not a fun phase. So when Evan told me he had a bump on his head I assumed it was from some kind of minor injury possibly inflicted by his little brother. I swept my hand over his head, felt the bump and parted his hair to find my worst nightmare, an engorged tick.

My reaction wasn't pretty. Fortunately I live in a house full of males, instead of joining in the hysteria, they all looked at me like I was nuts.

Jed has dubbed me the nurse of the house which works well most of the time. I don't mind dolling out medicine, taking kids to doctors appointments or dealing with most wounds but this... ugh.

I took it slow and Jed gave me a hand holding Evan's hair back. Poor Evan, it took a few yanks to get it out and I kept getting his hair caught in the tweezers. He got a sucker for being such a good sport.

I loath ticks. Hours later and my skin is still crawling.

Evan, on the other hand, wanted to look at it.