Revenge of the Ticks

A couple of weeks ago, while spending quality (AKA walking through brush covered with ticks) time together as a family we surprisingly experienced a tick infestation. Even though I crammed my family into the bathroom and stripped them down, I evidently missed a tick because as I was doing Lizzy’s hair this morning I found an enormous tick stuck to her scalp. After I stopped flapping my hands, jumping up and down, and screaming; I ran her downstairs to confer with my husband.

I remembered reading something about alcohol killing ticks so I started poring alcohol in her hair. Naturally, it started running into her eyes as it did not occur to me that I might want to give her a washcloth to cover them. But Lizzy, unlike some of my other children who will remain nameless, is tough so after I washed out her eyes with water she was ok. I killed the tick but it was still stuck in her head. Fortunately for all concerned, at that point my husband took over the tick removal procedure.

FYI -- not really necessary to pore half a bottle of alcohol over your child’s head to kill a tick.