mother's day weekend, part 1

(by the way, I made it till 9:45 last night!)

Saturday was a really beautiful day. Andrew and I both managed to get runs in Saturday morning, the sun was shinning, it was warm - it was a very rare, but very nice, New England spring day. Right after lunch I went outside to play with Baby Girl and my niece - we played with bubbles, walked down to see the boats, and other mind numbing fun and exciting games for the 3 and under set.

We headed to the cape in the late afternoon and played outside some more, brought out the sidewalk chalk, went for buggy rides (okay, Baby Girl went for a buggy ride and Mama had to push the buggy). Here's the buggy (ours is green):
Anyway, so you can see it was a very fun day with lots of outside playing in various places. After we were done playing outside, Andrew ran Kentucky Derby game (we draw numbers out of a hat every year and it's very involved; it involves family members outside of NE, a complicated system as to who gets how many picks and when they can pick, and a lot of screaming at the TV), we were cooking dinner, and Baby Girl needed a bath. Because dinner was running late due to said Derby, I decided to run upstairs, hose down Baby Girl and be done by dinner time.

I stripped her down naked, plopped her in the tub, put her baby wash on the face cloth and then

freaked. the. eff. out.

I saw the biggest tick I have ever seen burrowing into my daughter's back. I can still barely type the words without wanting to crawl into the fetal position and cry.

We couldn't get it out. We tried. It wasn't moving. I freaked out. Andrew freaked out (in a much more dignified way than I did). Baby Girl was screaming because she had no idea what was going on.

To the ER we went! With Mama freaking out the whole way.

We were fast tracked when we got to the ER (THANK YOU ER GODS!!!!!). We had maybe a 10 minute wait, and then I was called into registration. I was still in the middle of registration when Baby Girl was called in. Andrew scooped her up and brought her in.

I'll skip the next 20 minutes with the Novocaine, special tweezers, and magnifying glasses.

ER doc got the tick out. Told us she's not at risk for Lyme, it wasn't a deer tick. Gave us a script for amoxicillan anyway, since I was still freaking out. Warned me not to fill it unless she had warning signs of Lyme. Told me again she wasn't at risk for it.

Once she calmed down after the tick was out, it was like nothing had ever happened. And no, she's showing no signs of Lyme. And I have finally calmed down.

Barely.


We still have no idea how she got the tick. Everything I've read and everything I've seen says ticks do not live in nicely manicured lawns. Well, this tick was rogue because we didn't traipse though any wooded areas on Saturday. Maybe someone should have told him ticks don't live in the grass.

It's all good now.

It would have been better if any one of my 3 horses had won the Derby! Damn you Animal Kingdom!