TICKIFIED!

Yesterday, we discovered a tick sauntering arrogantly across a kitchen chair.
Like he owned the place.

With a shriek and a screech, I sprang into action and applied a variety of Kung-fu, Karate, and Jiu-Jitsu moves to DECIMATE, PULVERIZE and plain ole SMASH that tiny tick into non-existence.

Then we all did the Heebie-Jeebie dance.
You put your right foot in.
You put your right foot out.
You put your right foot in and you thrash it all about.
You've got the Heebie-Jeebies, so you shake it all around.
That's what it's all about!
Ick.  Yuck.  Blech.

One of my sons placed the teeny tick corpse into a clear glass and then we all ran over to the computer to ask Mr. Google some questions!

What kind of tick had infringed upon our bug-free home?  Did we need to react with mass hysteria....call the police, call the newspaper, call the zoo, call the exterminator......and begin wearing Hazmat suits?  Did we need to rush ourselves down to the emergency room for an examination, some medication and maybe defibrillator usage?

Mr. Google was patient and provided lots of details for us.  I really like Mr. Google.  He is thorough.  He is detailed.  He provides articles, pictures, worse-case-scenarios and short videos on pretty much any topic we are interested in.  And this is what he told us.....our Ticky Trespasser was most likely a brown dog tick.
Brown dog ticks are reddish-brown and are the tick most likely to be found inside people's homes (ugh).

They can lay their eggs pretty much anywhere and are found anywhere in the world (crazy little opportunistic pest!)

They are not known to transmit Lyme disease but CAN transmit Rocky Mountain spotted fever (ugh and good to know).


We also read about some generic Tick Topics like:

Ticks are members of the arachnid family.  That means they are related to spiders not insects.  They have 8 legs.

Ticks have four stages to their life cycle:  egg, larva, nymph, adult.   They blood-feed at the last three stages (larva, nymph and adult) and then the females will seek to reproduce and lay more tick eggs. (WHEE!)

A female is bigger than a male (probably cuter, too.  The size thing is a good distinguisher since ticks don't shave their legs or wear pink hair ribbons.)


Okay, so now we were Tick-Informed and were feeling much less Terrified-of-Ticks or Tickified.

We eased away from Mr. Google.

"How did the tick get in here?" I questioned the kids suspiciously as if they had maybe snuck him into the house for some fun and games.

"Ugh....the computer said they often attach to dog hosts," quipped Liam, my eldest.  He rarely misses things.  Don't try to pull any wool over this kid's eyes....especially because that wouldn't be very nice.

"Hmmmmm...." I mused and we all cast narrowed glances at Yukon.  He sat up, wrinkled his brow at us and tilted his head to the side as if to say "What?  What'd I do?"

I clicked some keys on the keyboard and mouse-clicked on an article entitled "How to check your dog for ticks".  See what I mean?  This Mr. Google thing is HANDY stuff!   I mean, how did our parents do it before Mr. Google came around?
I just don't even know!!!

Mr. Google advised that we thoroughly check our in-house canine so we descended on Yukon.  We examined between his paw toes.  We peeked way way down into his ears.  We checked under his armpits (or paw pits) and all over his groin (awkward!)  We ran our fingers all over his head, neck, body, legs.
Nada.
No ticks.
Nothing.

"Wait!  Didn't Lochlan say he saw the tick earlier?" my second oldest questioned.  He is the detail guy.

We swivelled our eyes warily Lochlan's way.
"Did you?  See the tick?  Earlier?" I asked.  Apparently I had forgotten how to form long questions.  Ticks will do that to you!

"Um...." Lochlan stalled, trying to remember the exact details, "I saw a spider on my hand and I wiped it off."

"AHA!" I announced triumphantly, cocky with my newfound tick knowledge, "that was the tick!  Maybe he came inside the house on you!"

We mused on that for a moment before I shouted, "Eww.....TICK CHECK!" and all the kids snapped to attention.  We are avid hikers, after all and have been preparing for this moment for years.  We tick check regularly but just have never found them before.
The kids lined up facing me and pulled up their shirts.  I checked their tummies and backs, arm pits, arms, legs and ran my fingers through their hair.
Nothing.
No ticks.
Nada.

"Okay, maybe it was just a one time thing," I ruminated out loud, "where were you playing outside, Loch?"

"In the front yard!" my daughter responded quickly, "We were playing Ancaster Fair."

(side note:  "Ancaster Fair" is a game of genius imagination.  The rules are flexible but usually involve taking all the INDOOR toys and placing them OUTDOORS all over the front lawn.  The game is won when all the toys are outside, all the kids are inside and Mommy is standing in the middle of the yard pulling out her hair.)

"In the front yard," my daughter repeated, noting my flagging attention and shudders at the mention of the game "Ancaster Fair".

"Hmmmm......." five sets of eyes sized up our small, very urban, short-cut, front lawn.  Toys were spewed haphazardly over the grass in a crazy, colourful collection.   A surfboard was fasted to the umbrella tree.  Sidewalk chalk was spilled onto the sidewalk.  Several bikes, bike helmets and a guinea pig named Maple completed the chaotic scene.

Was that toy explosion the scene of tick infestation, I wondered?

The lawn provided no more clues.
The dog had been checked.  The kids had been checked.  Paul was gone all day.  I decided to check him later.
Nothing more.
No more ticks.
Nada.

We all felt pretty grossed out though.  All day, we had Phantom Tick Sightings.

"Look, mom, a TICK!"
"No, Sugar.  That is an ant."

"Look, mom, a TICK!"
"No, Buttons, that is a spider."

"Look, mom, a TICK!"
"No, Noodles, that is a caterpillar."

"Look, mom, a TICK!"
"No, Honey-Cakes, that is a cat."  This was getting ridiculously out of hand!

Today, I woke up with a resolution.  I decided we needed to learn some more about these Tick Terrorists.  Ignorance leads to Fear and Hysteria and we would NOT be ignorant!  No tick was going to scare us away from our very own front yard.

Education is Ammunition and all that!

We researched types of ticks found in Ontario.  Liam and Donovan each picked one and are working on a research paragraph complete with a drawing of their ticks......Deer Tick and Brown Dog Tick.  Gwen is doing a simpler research assignment on a Lone Star Tick and Lochlan.....well, he coloured a picture of a tick.  And that is because, yes, you CAN find Tick Colouring Pages online.  Good to know, right?  You are all going to Google, Pick and Print your own colouring pages now, aren't you?

Today, maybe you have your very own Tick Tale.

Maybe you have been calmly picking ticks off your torso for years and you wonder what the hype is all about.
Maybe you have just had your first tick-sighting like our family.
What did you do?
What have you learned?

Maybe you care to share?
Please let me know your story and we can stop being Tickified together!

Cheers!
Brigette-the-Tick-Terminator!