Daddy, make a picture

No matter how hard you try, how many tons of various supposed environmentally friendly pesticides you toss down and how many hats you buy for the kids, in these parts you can’t avoid ticks.

We’ve been pretty lucky. The few we’ve found on the kids have been mostly crawlers and haven’t hooked on yet. So I guess our number was up last night during bathtime when we found not one, but two on poor J. One on his scalp and another engourged one in his ear.

The one in his ear came out with no problem but the one in his scalp broke off as we were pulling it out and a bit of the head remained lodged there. A quick call to the doctor calmed our fears about the scalp - but since the one in his ear was engourged she wants to put him in anti-biotics for three weeks followed by a blood test.

I think the medicine will be harder for J to take than his mommy and daddy digging around his scalp with tweezers and a needle. All through the ordeal, with mommy talking about needles and daddy poking at his scalp, he didn’t complain once.

I would have been a puddle of fear hiding under the table.