PSA - The Tick

I'm not usually one to get up on a Soap Box and throw my opinion out to the wolves. I firmly believe that everyone has the right to their own opinion and as long as they are not infringing on my rights, I don't care what they think/feel/believe.

But, I'm here to say - Make sure you put bug spray on your children before they go galavanting around in the great outdoors. It is recommended you don't spray it directly on their skin, but rather spray the inside and outside of their clothes, socks, shoes, hats before you get them dressed. I know this seems common sense and it most definitely is not 100% guaranteed to prevent bugs from getting on your kids, but it's a precaution that should be observed.

You might be asking yourself 'Why the crap is Audra ranting about bug spray?' Well, you Facebook users are probably aware, but for those of you who aren't up to speed with the Facebook era...Dylan was bit by a nasty little tick yesterday. Now, we've had ticks in our house before. We have a dog who likes to run and lay in tall grass and brush, so yeah, we've had to get ticks (or rather, Mike has had to remove ticks) off the dog. I've had ticks removed at girl's camp when I was a teenager. But, I am here to tell you that getting a tick off a two year old's belly is one of the most unpleasant experiences ever! Stupid thing couldn't have grabbed onto Dylan's foot or arm. It went straight for the belly where the kid can see it and where Dylan simply breathing affects the ability to get at the darn bug with tweezers.

We were outside a good portion of the day because the weather was absolutely gorgeous. So, I'm not sure if the tick hitched a ride home from the park on Dylan's clothes or if he got it out in the backyard. We do live on an old farm field and there is a huge brush patch right next to our fence. It really could have come from either place. All I know is when I changed his diaper at lunch time, I saw no tick. When I changed it again after playing in the backyard, there was Mr Ticky attached to my sweet child's belly. I made the mistake of saying 'Ooo, Dylan, you have a bug on your belly.' To which Dylan replied, 'No Mama, no bug. Put shirt back on.' I tried to brush the thing with a wipe to see if it was still crawling around or if it had latched on and Dylan went ballistic on me. I knew then that there was no chance of me extracting on my own, so we had to wait a few hours for Mike to get home. In those three hours I was not allowed to go near Dylan's shirt. It was like if he couldn't see the bug, it didn't exist (Hmmm, that should be a fun lesson in Faith and Prayer at a later date).

When Mike got home, we got down to business. Dylan still didn't want his shirt off and he fought us trying to take it off. It took both Mike and I practically sitting on the child to hold him down. And, well, we all know that little kids do not take well to being restrained. He immediately started screaming and writhing around. I thought it would take longer for him to get REALLY worked up, but no. Within a couple seconds he was already to the point where I thought he was going to throw up. All this screaming and wiggling was causing Dylan belly to heave up and down - A LOT! Even when we were able to restrain his limbs, that darn belly was still moving all over the place and I'm certain we kept pinching his belly with the tweezers which added a whole other unpleasantry to the ordeal.

Details, details...we switched who was using the tweezers about 5 times. That little twerp tick just did not want to let go. I really can't blame him, Dylan does have really bitable, sweet skin. But, man, it took about a half hour to finally get that thing off. Plus about four more hours to get Dylan calmed down enough to go to bed (I think he finally went to sleep around 9:30). Very unpleasant experience. Mike and I felt horrible for having to traumatize our son, but we were not paying $100 at the ER to have them remove a stupid tick just to save ourselves some drama. So, we just had to deal with the racing hearts, high blood pressure, and our son hating us for the night.

And now for the worst part (& kind of contradicts my little PSA from earlier), I put bug spray on the child! Perhaps we'll just stay inside.