Last Saturday we went for a picnic lunch at the park that is adjacent to our property, even though it is a 20 minute drive to get to the park entrance (it's across the water, so we have to drive around the lake). The weather was just glorious, middle seventies, and we had a wonderful lunch and the kids got to run around like maniacs in a big wide open field and we didn't care as long as they didn't get close to the road. The weather had been quite chilly during the preceding week, though, so there weren't many bugs to bother us. It was a glorious day. Of course, I have no pictures - I was too busy just be-ing.
Tuesday morning Little Man was refusing to get up and get ready for school, saying he didn't want to go. So I used my tried and true method of stripping the kid completely naked so he gets cold and has to get up to get dressed, and after I pulled his pants off I noticed a spot in a most uncomfortable place.
"Aw, dude, you really need to wipe better. You got something on your nuts. Go clean it off." He reached down and tried to take it off, and started howling that it hurt. I steeled myself and looked a little closer through one eye, while trying to turn my head away, and saw that it was a bug.
To make a long story very very short, it was a deer tick. On the side of his testicles. I nearly fainted.
BigDaddyFish put vaseline on it to suffocate it. Then, because we can't find the tweezers, we handed Little Man a piece of chocolate and distracted him by talking about the weather and a vacation while I reached down with my fingernails and yanked the damn thing out. I got the whole thing, I am sure.
So now we are watching for the bullseye rash while I google lyme disease obsessively. Silly us thought it was too early for bugs. We're Einsteins that way.
Yikes!
That is somewhere I'd never even think to check for ticks. Hope he's okay, and not too traumatized by the brutal removal :)
Posted by: angi | April 17, 2008 at 10:27 PM
ow, ow, OW. and, ew, ew, EW. Though he appeared none the worse for wear today. :-)
Posted by: Agincourtdb | April 17, 2008 at 10:44 PM
ew ew. now I've got the itchies.
But I do the get-the-kid-naked-to-make-them-get-out-of-bed thing too. highly effective
Posted by: ktjrdn | April 18, 2008 at 08:31 AM
At least you can grab them and pull them out. Just the thought makes me nauseous. My poor children have to wait until I can find someone to remove them. I just can't do it. I've tried. Thank god for neighbors who understand.
I'm guessing that the stripping was sufficient to wake him up?
Posted by: Shannon | April 18, 2008 at 12:29 PM
OMG!!! Poor kid. Poor you!
Posted by: Alex Elliot | April 20, 2008 at 04:15 PM