Isn't It Ironic, or Oh, Ick!

Apparently, on one of our romps in the wooded area around the house, my daughter picked up a tick. It attached itself right at the back of her neck in the hairline. I found it just as Adam was dishing up dinner.

We googled "how to remove a tick" and found several reputable websites. The instructions on each of them were pretty similar:

• Grasp tick near the skin with blunt tweezers and pull gently without squeezing the tick (huh?)
• Pull the tick straight out without twisting or bending
• You may need to hold the tension steady, but the tick should release its hold in 3-4 minutes (!?!)

Anybody ever tried to gently hold a tweezers closed against the skin of a wriggly preschooler without twisting or squeezing the ¼-inch parasite attached below her skin? Yeah, it worked about that well.

It took several attempts, and finally the body broke away from the head (the tick's, not my daughter's). We called our pediatrician, Dr. P. She said if it didn't look infected, we had no reason to take her to urgent care, but just leave it alone and stop by her office in the morning.

After reassuring my little one that Dr. P was not going to cut off her head, so, yes, she would still be able to talk, we sat down to dinner. Each of us munched a few bites, but no one had much appetite. Adam quipped, "I've found the best new diet. It's called the Tick Diet. You just imagine a tick boring into your child's neck and suddenly you're not very hungry anymore."

It's funny; I wouldn't have figured an April Sunday that started out snowing would have gotten even ickier.