Every day, because it is important.

Juliette walked in to the bathroom while I was getting dressed this morning, and complained "mommy, my throat hurts. I have a boo boo on it." At first I though that she had a sore throat, but then she pulled her hair aside and I immediately saw what she meant. There was a huge (in my eyes) blood sucking tick embedded into the nape of her neck.

I am bad with bugs. Especially blood sucking disease carrying nasty little ticks. However, I remained calm... outwardly... and started frantically looking for the tweezers and calling for Greg to come help. This was not the way Greg hoped to be woken on the first day of his 40th year, but that is fatherhood.

He pulled the tick out. Most of it, anyway. I looked at it and decided that it is a female deer tick. The mature female is not as small as people think; Greg disagreed with me saying it was 'too big'... until he Googled it and realized I was right.

I know people who have had Lyme disease and they were horribly ill and in pain. Of course, partly that was due to the fact that their disease remained undiagnosed for so long... but a concerned mother is not rational and so I had visions of my beautiful five year old suffering all these debilitating affects all because I forgot to do a tick check last night...

then I called the pediatrician. Like all good pediatricians they were the voice of reason. They told me it wasn't uncommon to have little (mouth) bits stay stuck but as long as I got most of it the rest would come out on its own. They said that if I found it within 24 hours the chance of getting any disease, including Lyme, is almost nonexistent. They said to just watch out for symptoms. They do not, however, test the tick.

I checked with the state and they do test the tick... if it is engorged. This one is not.

I thought about bringing it to work, grinding it up, and testing it for Lymes myself. I mentioned it to a colleague who told me that her friend actually does that... and would probably test my tick.

Ahha!
Finally!
My science is useful!

I know I shouldn't worry. But I do. So I will call the garden and lawn people and get my lawn sprayed. I will go get Frontline for the dog. Isn't it ironic that the dog is more protected then my daughter? And I will do a tick check EVERY SINGLE DAY. Because yesterday... I didn't.