Here is the first-ever EIH blog multiple choice question…
What question would you least prefer to hear asked from your next door neighbor at approximately 3 in the afternoon?
a. Can I borrow a stick of butter?
b. Will you collect my newspaper while I’m on vacation?
c. Do you have an extra egg I could use?
d. Will you please remove the tick that is lodged in my lower back that I’m unable to reach?
Okay, I’m going out on a limb, and answer for our next door neighbor. D. Why’d I choose D. you say? Only because I in fact asked this very question today.
(Tell me, how happy are you that you’re not my next door neighbor?)
The boys and I went on a fun summer morning hike with some incredibly fun moms and kids from my eMoms group. See the fun we had?!?
On bug inspector patrol!
Cal showing his exciting new friends!
Jake getting up and personal with the turtle!
The fun ended when we got home. I, like any momma monkey would do, inspected her young. Unfortunately I found a tick stuck to Cal in the “ahem…”, area. After my brief spazz session and the successful removal, I found yet another one, this time on my lower back. Yes, I thought about removing it myself as my pride is thicker than the mascara that once coated Tamy Faye Baker’s lashes. But as a woman who’s been there, done that, got the “bulls-eye” mark/t-shirt/month long antibiotic Lyme’s prescription three years ago, I wanted this done promptly and properly.
Yes, our neighbor agreed to my insane request. Yes, I rambled on embarrassed to be asking such a question. Yes, we sanitized, considered and tried their dog’s tick removal tools. Yes, our neighbor removed it. Yes, Dave’s is still enjoying the humor factor of my precarious position. Yes, my neighbor has made one hysterical reference hours after the extraction to the effect, “the doctor is in”…which, (considering he’s a West Virginia University graduate) is humorous. Yes, I’m completely confused, what’s the deal…(RANT WARNING!) I used the organic/natural bug repellent cause the DEET products will make our offspring grow an additional limb, third eyeball, or something like that…which probably won’t matter because we regularly drink water from plastic bottles which are also cancer causing. I’m dizzy just thinking about it all!
Anyhoo, just gotta keep living life, roll with the punches and pray for a sane, steady-handed neighbor, each move! Our neighbor Brent sure got the short end of the stick but we Finks sure didn’t! Fergie may be Fergalicious, but the Finks appear to be tick-a-licious!
And I’m left wondering, how do you protect yourself and kids from the critters?!?!
Oh now you wanna have back up!! Did you forget all the lessons about being prepaired for anything(just in case)
Not to say the extra key hidden in my house wasn’t back up 
Had I been home I would have answered your late night window knocking and you would have gotten you safely back into your house so you could yell at romeo..Now you went and got technology. It’s about time 
..but look at the bright side..at least you don’t have to worry about the frogs locking you out of the house. 
~amber~
Ok so we both know that I have just now started reading this blog and in the past few days I have gone through a lot of your little stories. but this one hit’s close to home, as I have once in my life been your neighbor and we both know there are some fun memories of that time. Of coarse for your sake I will not go into but never the less the memories I will carry for a life time lol. and for your sake and the sake of the fink boys..give you neighbor an extra key(just in case)
I love you steph!
HOLY COW GIRL! Not only do one but TWO of our neighbors have the code to our garage. You know a good cop always has back up! Which if we had that technology back in Oklahoma could have prevented a most unusually embarrassing evening for a certain neighbor of yours that was very mad at you for ignoring my late night window tap until I found out that you guys were at a ball game! And then the, “what’s that white stuff on your face?” Give…me…strength! (And your Mom’s bathrobe!) Love you girl and the fun memories together!
1. appropriate Psalm 91
2. garlic
3. Avon skin so soft–or is this just mosquitoes?
thanks for the reminder about DEET
I am wondering if this was just a God set up to stretch that territory! Wow–getting to know your neighbors, huh?
Yikes! So glad you were able to get it removed, Steph!
Thanks for the tip, Jennifer. A favorite removal trick in our house is to hold an ice cube in front of the tick on the skin – ticks don’t seem to like the cold and they back themselves out – then we grab ‘em with a tweezer or tissue. The kids don’t like the cold from the ice, either, so I may try your tip next time (which is likely to be any second now…ugh, so many ticks this year!)
Reading this entry, as well as the other comments, have given me great comfort! I am just finishing my month long course of antibiotics after being tested positive for Lyme disease. And I too never knew I had a tick! It’s so scary! I have been made fun of for years by my husband and various friends for being obsessive about tick, checking the kids and asking to be checked. I have no shame…if I think there is something on me I’ll ask just about anyone to check it for me. I now wear the little bug band, spray with the strongest stuff I can find and still tread lightly on camping trips/park trips/backyard outings!
Patrick gets ticks just about EVERY time the poor kid steps outside.
For future refrence, I’m an avid tick remover! In fact, the best trick I have to removing them is: Getting a tissue or cotton ball and loading it with dish soap. Then you rub the tick in circular motions till the little baby comes out. Works like a charm every time!
So, if you ever need help I’m just three doors down!
What a brave woman you are!!! Ticks + protection = Don’t go outside. I tell you – I was just diagnosed with Lyme Disease and there was no tick ever found on me – we speculate that I may have gotten this in my quest to track down the mallard duck that was using my flowerbed for her clutch of ducklings – only to have a skunk come in a raid her nest – thus leaving me with 8 eggs and a 3 hour drive to a farm that could incubate and raise the helpless ducklings. We trapsed through tall grass by Home Depot in Ashburn thinking that was her watering hole. Needless to say I am a victim of the lovely vector that carries Lyme disease and have since pulled only one of these critters off my son. Now I shower them in tick repellant and do the head-to-toe prison check to make sure they do not have any lingering in the nookes and crannies. Perfect timing for your story – it made me laugh something I find a bit more difficult to do these days. God Bless you girlfriend.