All was quiet in the Freed household last night. Faithful Pup Scout was snoozing on the couch next to me. It was around 11:30 p.m. I was starting to imitate a zombie...I was just about ready to go upstairs and go to bed. All of a sudden, I heard a scream, a thump, footsteps across the ceiling above me, and I turned to the stairs just in time to see my daughter half-running/half-stumbling down the stairs, hollering the whole way. I had been very close to falling asleep myself, so the sudden thundering of footsteps and yelling startled me. I believe I came close to hitting the ceiling, followed by three panic attacks, and was about to call the fire department. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I had no idea what had just happened.
My daughter appeared hysterical, and close to hyperventilating. I grabbed her and hugged her, letting her know everything was okay, but I wanted to know what was wrong. As she struggled to take deep breaths, I kept trying to calm her down so she could explain what was happening. She finally caught her breath and was able to tell me what happened.
She said, "I was in my bed reading when I reached back behind my neck and felt a bump. I picked at it and pulled it off, and when I saw it, it was a TICK!!!" She started to sob. I asked her where it was. She said she didn't know. She just threw it and ran downstairs.
Great, I thought to myself. Not only was it 11:30 and my daughter still awake, but now we had a tick on the loose somewhere in the house. No one would be able to sleep until we found it.
I finally calmed my daughter enough to convince her to go upstairs to help me find the tick, and I asked her to reenact what happened. She sat on the bed and showed me what she did, which was not a lot. There was no way to tell what she did with the tick. It could be anywhere. So we started looking around on the floor. Every spec, every crumb, every piece of lint was suspicious. Faithful Pup Scout walked into the room, and I chased her out. The last thing I wanted was for her to get the tick on her. My daughter yelled, "There it is!!!" and she ran out of the room. I didn't see which way she had pointed, so I ran out, too. This was getting ridiculous and started to resemble a Three Stooges short.
I grabbed a few tissues and went back into her room. Scout was already in the room and had her nose to the floor. I pushed her aside and there it was! Scout had found it, right in the middle of the bedroom floor. I used the tissue to grab the little blood sucker and I showed it to my daughter. It was very small. She was skittish, and didn't really want to see it, so I took it into the bathroom and flushed the little bugger away.
The tick must have broken the skin just a bit, since there was a very small wound just below her neck. I wiped it with Neosporin and assured my girl she would be fine. She was still a little frightened, but I told her to go to bed, that she was fine. An hour and a half later and I think she finally fell asleep. I was a little wound up myself, at it was almost two o'clock before I fell asleep. The alarm clock went off 3 and a half hours later and it was off to work for me. I was dead tired all day. I later heard that my daughter had trouble getting up, too. Stupid tick.
But the first day of camp was a great day for everyone. I know I enjoyed it.
Sleep well, everyone. Don't start itching....
No comments:
Post a Comment