So what do you tell your barely five year old after you find a bloated woodtick latched to the back of her scalp that you have to remove with a tweezers, particularly after you're worried you missed the head and have to take her to urgent care to get a second opinion and a first strike prescription in case she shows signs of Lyme's Disease?
1.) I'm sorry honey. That probably hurt. Woodticks are gross, but you'll be fine. I know you were scared, but you pulled through like a trooper.
2.) Uncle Andrew and I used to have a third brother, until he was bitten by a woodtick and grew big woodtick arms out his sides, and then ran off to live in the woods with his woodtick girlfriend. That's why boy woodticks have suspenders and girl woodticks have necklaces.
3.) If I missed the head, they'll put another woodtick on you so that the heads can fight it out. Usually they fight until both of them die, that's why you use two.
4.) I'm keeping the woodtick. His name is Woodticky. He's a goth
Webkinz. I'm going to decorate his room and buy him stuff.
5.) Wow...look at that. He's got a piece of your skull in his mouth.
6.) Once a woodtick bit me and I got Lyme's. Then this nerve in my face swelled up and I got what's called
Bell's Palsy. I had to wear sunglasses because one side of my face wouldn't work and my eye stayed open and if I ate or drank on that side, the food or water would fall out.
7.) You probably have to get a shot.
8.) Did you hear the joke about the little boy who came inside for lunch and his mom asked if he wanted fruit and he said, "No, I already ate the grapes off the dog."?
9.) Do you think the tooth fairy left a woodtick under your pillow because you won't get rid of that loose tooth?
In my defense, I said #1 as well as #2 through #9. I think I said some other horrible things as well (with the excuse that she needed to get used to it, because by the time she turned 7 or 8, it would be coming from me, Kyle and Dan'l) - it was a long night in urgent care because my sister and mother, the nurses, wouldn't answer their phones. And to make it up to her, we finished off a 10:00 p.m. evening with a bit of DQ. But that thing was really pretty disgusting. She told Pooteewheet that she thought she'd felt it roaming around her head on Tuesday. Ish. She's now very clear that you should report any bumps on your head.
Here's the disgusting little bastard in person, in a date-stamped spice jar full of rubbing alcohol in case we need to do a Lyme's test later.
