C'est Moi!

(Photography assignment: Take a self portrait that tells us something about you)

Not everyone gets to wake up on the morning of their birthday to find a tick embedded in their leg.

A TICK!!!

The first time I heard about these blood sucking creatures was when I was a teenager in a camp-preparation meeting where they warned us that ticks were hiding in the bushes and trees ('so don't get too close to a bush if you're peeing on it' was their warning), and that leeches were lurking in the lake. I was terrified, and a little obsessive about checking myself for the unwanted parasites. My sister got one at camp that year...on the top of her shoulder where her hair fell. I felt sorry for her, but secretly felt glad it was her and not me.

Even when we moved to North Carolina, I've managed to escape the ticks. Our friends have had plenty, McKenzie has had two, but I have had none - - - until my birthday, that is. Right on the outside of my thigh.

Oh no. No, no, no. I thought to myself the moment I spotted it. Are you freakin' KIDDING me?

You could say that I have a slight wimpishness when it comes to killing bugs. I don't like the way it sounds, and I don't like the way it feels. When McKenzie had a tick on the back of her ear, we waited hours until Daddy came home, 'cause Mama just couldn't handle it. But here I was faced with a grim reality: I could spend my whole entire birthday with a tick in my leg, or I could grab it with a pair of tweezers and get it out, knowing full well that I would probably end up crushing the life out of it. Neither option sounded like a true winner.

In the end, I decided it would be best to get it out - so I summoned up my courage and recalled some research I had done on it last year. Some of my favorite lines from the webpage I remembered were,

"Do not be alarmed if the tick's mouthparts remain in the skin..."
(What the WHAT? I do NOT want any 'mouthparts' in my skin, thank you very much!)

"Throw the dead tick away with the household trash."

(Whew...I was hoping they'd have disposal directions...)

And then, this picture:

Well, there was a lot of muttering under my breath, 'stupid, disgusting tick, this is crappy, crappy tick'...but in the end, I was successful. I even managed to keep the mouthparts attached to the tick instead of me! I only had one freak-out moment which resulted in me dropping the tweezers with a startled yelp. Who knew that when I grabbed the tick's body, all eight of it's legs would move?! Disgustingly terrifying, if you ask me.

Thankfully, the day could only get better from there. I came out into the kitchen and was greeted by beautiful roses, a birthday banner, balloons and streamers - - - it was obvious that my sweet hubby had gotten up extra early before work.

And, it was great to pull the birthday card for an entire day. Whenever a fight broke out between the kids, all I would have to do is start singing, "Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me..." and the fighting would grudgingly stop. I learned a very important lesson that day about those kids: they do know what I want!


How long do you think it would take them to catch on if I put up balloons once a month and told them it was my birthday?