This is not for the faint of heart! If you have a weak stomach...proceed no further! Perhaps I am just over reacting, but then again...no, because I feel sick to my stomach now!
Cade and I spent the entire day outside. Him playing in the pool and me tanning in my lawn chair. I finally laid him down for a nap a little before two. I went back outside and fell asleep on my lawn chair on my stomach...so now I have the oddest tan lines on my arm because my head was laying on it! But that's not the bad part!
Duke, my sister-in-law
Tara's dog, stayed outside with us most of the day.
Tara is out of town for a wedding in Virginia...So I am on dog sitting detail. After Cade woke up, I went inside and we both showered. I put a diaper on him and remembered
Duke was still outside. So we both went outside so that I could let
Duke in his house.
I let
Duke in his house which is right next door to mine....not very far at all! I came walking back towards my house in just enough time to see Cade start to put his fingers in his mouth...but there was something dark, kinda a purplish color on his fingers. I grabbed his hand before his fingers could make their way into his mouth! Upon further inspection I noticed that this same substance was also on his face, splattered about in various places, his forehead and nose, as well as on his chest and his other hand. I was looking at him and wondering what he got a hold of. So thinking out loud, I said "a berry"...This of course made me nervous because there are berries on many trees around my house, we even have raspberries growing. So my first concern was what kind of berry it was, I know some are not for human consumption. So of course I start looking around the area where we were. One of my patio chairs was right next to him. I saw a large round something sitting on the chair. What ever it was had burst and I could see the same color inside this "berry". But it was an odd color on the outside, a grayish color, it was so large it looked like a big blueberry or perhaps a small grape.
My first thought was that it was perhaps decaying and that would explain the odd color. I was still holding Cade's arm by his wrist, so I picked up this berry thing and told him lets go and proceeded towards my door. I was heading inside to clean him up and throw the berry away. I looked down at the berry to figure out what it was and more importantly where it possibly could have come from. As I turned my hand to get a look around the berry, my stomach jumped into my throat!
Realization struck...I looked down at Cade and said, "EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW....Cade....oh Cade....ewwwwwwwwwwww" as I hopped up and down. It wasn't berry juice spattered about...it was blood! That "berry" was no berry at all, it wasn't even a species of plant...it was the largest, most bloated tick I have ever seen in my life! I didn't even know they could get that large! I flinged my hand out in order to toss the little blood sucker away from me....it made me even more sick when it stuck to my thumb. My knees were coming up high one after the other, kinda like I was running in place, as I hopped around shaking my hand in order to GET IT OFF OF ME, saying ewwww the whole time! I call it the
"hibby jibby" dance, the stationary version of course! I did the
hibby jibby dance that day with the snake...but that wasn't the stationary version, that was the fight or flight version, of course in that case I chose flight! LOL!!!
As soon as the tick finally flung off, I grabbed Cade and went running inside! The whole way trying to control my stomach, as the thought of him picking up that tick and obviously squeezing it so hard that it burst ran through my head. My head was literally spinning! I washed him up with antibacterial soap, nearly in tears.
The funny thing is that, he found my reaction funny. So the whole way he was saying, "ewwwww" and laughing and trying to hop like me.
I went outside with a napkin to retrieve the little monster so that we didn't have a repeat of the little blood bath. I was thinking, maybe I saw it wrong, that couldn't have been a tick. That was way too big to be a tick...So I glanced at it again after picking it up with a napkin...Nope IT WAS A TICK ALRIGHT!
I am still disturbed! I have this thing with ticks. We live in a wooded area, so it's not uncommon to find them on the dogs. But I always have
Tara remove them because my biggest fear is trying to take one off the dogs and having it burst....So that is why this disgusts me so very badly! Because one burst and Cade almost....I'm not even going to say it...
I just don't think my stomach can ever recover from this! I don't think I will ever eat again in my life! It reminded me of a story that my Mema and Papaw told me that involved my Dad (when he was little) and a frog...and two bricks...I don't know which is worse...
The things kids get into! I just don't see how in the world he could have found that stupid tick in the yard! Granted it was rather large, but that's almost like finding a needle in a haystack! So Gross! Being a single mom is great! I should probably just name my blog...Adventures of a Single Mom...Cause I would not have retrieved that tick if I didn't have to! I would have sent a man to do it! LOL! I am a girl, I am a wimp, and I have no problems admitting that!
