Corona Virus Quarantine Day #74: Ticks.  June 1, 2020:

My kids love to play outside.  We live in the country. So ticks, snakes, bugs are all part of the deal.

Most of the time it’s beautiful.  When one of the kids gets a tick…it’s not my favorite thing.

Tonight, Fletcher was the unlucky one…or Bryan, depends on how you look at it.

The tick was on his penis, his testicles to be exact.

Yep.  That’s right.

I have to laugh because this has happened once before…but to Cooper and Fletcher was in my belly weeks away from being born.

I was home with the four kids.  At the time they were all under the age of 4.  Cooper had a tick on his testicles as well.

This moment in my life would make an amazing Saturday Night Live skit.  He was terrified and so little.  I had the tweezers trying to get at it, but my belly was very pregnant and I was worried he’d inadvertently kick me and it was really stuck on there.  I felt like I was going to pass out.  The other three kids were sitting on the bed next to him and were cheering him on.  Saying things like “you got this Cooper,” “you are so brave,” “we love you Cooper,” “you can do it Cooper.”

If I didn’t want to pass out I may have been laughing.  The tick would. not. budge.

I am a woman, so I obviously do not have a penis.  I was terrified I’d hurt him or maim him in some way for life so it was so important I be careful for his sake and for mine.

I should mention that I am not a super experienced tick taker offer, normally this was Bryan’s job.  I had seen Bryan use a match to get the little blood sucker to let go of his firm grasp so I figured I’d give that a try.

When I brought a match upstairs Cooper screamed “please don’t burn my penis mommy!”

I mean, you can’t make this stuff up!

I assured him that I wouldn’t burn him and tried to get the pesky tick off again.  He was so freaked out at this point he was kicking wildly…and reminder…I’m super pregnant!

Clearly I needed a Plan B…so I had just brought large bags of candy for my kids at school so I had one of the kids run down to grab them.  We didn’t allow the kids to have candy very often so I thought it might entice him to stay still.  The kids opened the whole bag and spread it around him all while encouraging him…sadly…it did not work.

Again…Saturday Day Night Live. Here is Cooper, surrounded by candy, three siblings telling him “he can do it” and a very pregnant mom borderline passing out trying to get this tick off of his testicles.  Crazy town.  Now I can laugh…It’s funny now.  It was not at all funny then.

I had to call Bryan who was at our house that was under construction and he and his dad and our brother in law Kevin were putting the slide into the wall.  He gave me multiple suggestions like Vaseline but none of them worked.  Cooper was increasingly scared and I couldn’t get the damn tick off.

Long story short…Bryan had to come home and take the tick off.

Can I also say he walked in and pulled that little bugger right off…like, immediately, it came off…easily!  What the heck?!

Not fair.  Made me feel pretty stupid.  I chalked it up to protecting my little Fletcher who was born just about 2 weeks later.

Tonight piles of candy weren’t necessary.  Fletcher was scared, he cried a little but Cooper came in and promised him he could have his large bag of Twizzlers.  That was all it took.  Cooper remembered his traumatic experience.  He felt Fletcher’s pain and he saved the day.

Bryan pulled the tick off with a little trouble.  When it was all over Fletcher laid down in his bed and looked at me with tears in his sweet blue eyes and said “those ticks are bad mommy.  Why did they have to get on my penis?”  I did not have a good answer.  Only to say…we need to stay out of the trees.

However, this experience brought back all the memories and made me smile.

Tomorrow we must stay out of the trees.

This might be why the kid gets ticks on his private parts…he loves bugs.  Today he was letting a lady bug crawl all over him!

 

The boys go out everyday now and practice their baseball skills…even though it seems like they won’t be able to play because their team fell apart due to Covid.  I haven’t had the heart to tell them yet.  But on a positive side note every time they play catch Fletcher gets his baseball hat, bat, ball and tee and “crushes” the ball!  He wants to be like his big brothers. 

Gigi doesn’t love the heat and Fiona was pretty sure she wanted to be covered in pillows while she napped on the couch.  

Stay well!

#ceelebr8awesome

#dorseyshenanigans