the tick bite

Aiden has discovered a new fun activity - jumping in piles of leaves. When I first made a pile for him to jump in he looked at me kind of funny like - "are you serious? you want me to jump into that?" I guess to him it seemed too good to be true...like one of those things he's not allowed to do.

Aiden holding a very small pumpkin.

Aiden is wearing his new jacket I picked up at LL Bean. I had been looking for a puffy jacket for him for a while now. He looks like such a little man in it.

A few days after these pictures were taken, I found a tick on Aiden. You see, Aiden goes around saying a "a bee bites...a bee bites" which means a bug bites. Most of the time we ignore it because he says it all the time. Well the other morning shortly after waking up he said it again "a bee bites, a bee bites". As alway, I asked him "where does it bite Aiden?" and he said "a bee bites me ear" while pulling his ear. My first thought was maybe he has an ache but then I grabbed him and looked behind both ears. To my surprise and disgust, I see this THING stuck to the back of his ear. With my voice shaking, I called for Adam who was in the bedroom (I was in the bathroom) and said "Adam what is THAT". With one look he confirmed that it was a tick. A real TICK. To told me to grab some tweezers and alcohol and I did immediately. Adam very carefully took the tick off of Aiden. I ran downstairs and got a zip lock back to save the tick just in case we needed for testing. My heart was pounding and Adam was yelling "how could this happen? How did we not see that?" We ran downstairs and started our research on the internet. Within about 15 minutes, Adam concluded that it was highly likely that the tick was infected with Lime Disease and that Aiden probably had Lime Disease. We called the pediatricians office and she asked us to bring that tick in for testing. The next day first thing I took the tick in for testing and I took Aiden in for a visual exam to look for the tell tail circle around the bite. I had prayed the entire night before. My heart was in my throat from the moment I saw that damn tick. The pediatrician said Aiden looked okay but we really need to see what the lab results (from the tick) showed. For five days, I prayed, prayed and prayed some more. Finally on Friday, they called and said NEGATIVE!!!!!!!!! I cannot tell you the relief I felt at that moment. A conclusive NEGATIVE!

I am so glad that is in the past and I will check my kids for ticks every time I bathe them. Lesson learned! No more lessons needed!