rule #1: wear clothes?

I have some pictures to upload from Monday when we did Easter "baskets." I don't have them off of the camera now, so it'll have to wait for another day I guess.

I sprained my knee last Tuesday. I'm not a baby about these things, but I am really frustrated with this knee. I've done something similar to it before, but it was better after a few days. It's been 10 days, and it's not any better. And I was doing really well at exercising. My weight loss plans are at a slow down for now. Ugh.

After breakfast this morning, Kate smelled like she had a gross poopy diaper. So of course I changed her. And some of it got on her onesie, so I took it off to put a new one on (which I hadn't planned on doing because she had had a bath last night and had a new one on already). It was after I took it off that I notice a weird scab looking thing on her shoulder. And despite having never seen one before on a person, my gut told me that it was a tick. Sure enough it was. I checked her body all over and found another one on her ankle under her sock. (I did check Seth from head to toe as well, and he was all good!) Praise the Lord for a gross poopy diaper to change!

I spent a few minutes looking up how to remove it (I remember hearing that it was important and could be difficult depending on how long it had been there), and after removing them, I put them in a jar...because that's what I read to do in case they needed info on identifying what type of tick it was. And then I looked at tons of pictures online of different types of ticks. Gross.

I identified Kate's ticks as deer ticks. Yep, those nasty ones that can infect you with Lyme's disease. Awesome. But after reading more, I felt pretty certain that she would be okay because the ticks hadn't been on there for much more than 14 hours, and they sit without doing anything for 24 hours. It's 24-48 hours AFTER the initial 24 where you can become infected.

Nevertheless, I took her to school to see the doctor who comes to town once a week to make sure. Seth was super excited to show him the jar with the two ticks inside. The doctor was pretty certain that she would be okay, but we have to watch both spots for the next three days. If anything changes or gets worse, we have to put her on antibiotics, which he already wrote the prescription for. Seeing this doctor today only cost $35, but if I had to go into the clinic in the city, it would have been $200. SO grateful that this happened today.

Ticks are pretty common here and something that I had been warned about by many people. I just didn't expect her to get two of them while playing at the playground! We weren't hiking in the woods or anything. We were at the playground after dinner last night for an hour before baths and bed. And both bites happened on places that were covered by clothing. I thought the number one rule of tick bite prevention was to be clothed!

I am not super anxious to go back to the playground. I will most definitely be checking out Seth and Kate now for ticks. Sheesh. I didn't think I had to worry about that at the playground. I know I already said that, but still.

And the royal wedding is tomorrow! I don't have to wake up early to watch any of it though. :) It's at noon our time. We can eat lunch and watch the wedding, although without television stations, I will have to find some way to watch it on the internet. (That is more difficult than you think because most things are blocked from people not within the United States to watch.) Kevin was making fun of me for wanting to watch it. I am not super into the royal thing, but I do hope to see it. It's a prince and soon-to-be princess getting married! I do wonder why people are obsessed with the British royal family though when there are lots of other royals out there in different nations. Hmmm...

Nighty-night!