The Adventures of Tick Head and Ant Girl

Last week was rough.  I dealt with two buggy situations I never envisioned myself having to deal with.  My mom used to tell me that whenever her or one of her siblings had a cut that had more than a smidgeon of blood that my grandmother would take a quick look and promptly send them next door to her mother's house to get taken care of.  I used to think this sort of strange.  She was the mother, shouldn't she take those injured chicks and harbor them under her wing?  After these rather minor situations I completely understand.  If I had a mother living next door I would have done the exact same thing.

We went rock climbing in Draper last Monday at a place call Red Rock Crag.  When I say "we", I mean Brigham and Ava.  I simply tried to keep Brielle alive up there.  Also I'm not fond of heights.  Not at all.  We spent an hour or so there, then packed it up and called it a day.  This will be important for later.

On Wednesday afternoon I was in the kitchen doing dishes when Ava comes rushing in from outside.  "They are all over her and she doesn't like it!" She exclaims upon laying eyes on me.  I wrinkled my forehead and said, "What's all over her?" The her, being my baby, Brielle...that much was clear to me.  Ava sighs in frustration and says, "Just come out here!" and starts marching out the door.  I follow bemoaning in my head how I can never get anything done without being interrupted a dozen times.

As I walk up the steps from our basement I see her.  She is standing at the top of the stairs whining.  I quickly see why.  There are ants swarming her.  I can see them crawling everywhere...her legs, her belly, her arms, her neck, her face (I know, her face!) and in her hair.  I'm serious when I say that it appeared like her hair was moving, that's how many ants were climbing around in there.  "What in the world!" I yelled and quickly scooped her up and rushed her to the bathroom.  I stripped her down and plopped her in the bathtub and turned on the shower.  She is bawling and reaching for me.  The ants that transferred when I was holding her have descended upon me like a plague.  I can feel them crawling behind my ears and down my neck.  I swat them away as I wash Brielle.  After I got her calmed down and dried off I got angry.

I took the bug killer and sprayed every last one of the hoard into oblivion.  My motto with most bugs has always been live and let live.  Even with spiders.  Call me crazy but if they are not directly threatening me I let them be.  But these "harmless" little ants messed with the wrong mama bear.  I was fuming.  I kept finding ants crawling around in the bathroom and kitchen and took great satisfaction in squishing the life out of them.  I later asked Ava what happened.  She said they had sat down on the sidewalk to color with chalk and the ants had quickly inundated them.  She said, "I brushed them off of me, but they got Brielle.  I tried to brush them off of her too, Mom."  Craziest thing ever.

The next night after a bath I was braiding Ava's hair into little french braids all over her head so her hair would be wavy the next day for her dance performance at school.  I got two-thirds of the way over her head when I spied something curious.  At first I thought Ava must have picked a scabbed and it had clotted up on her scalp, but as I looked closer I saw legs moving!  I froze.  I slowly stood up and stepped away from Ava as if she were a bomb.  I just kept thinking to myself...don't freak out, don't freak out.  Ava looked at me as I reached for my phone and she said, "What's the matter, Mom?"  I'd never be good at Poker, my emotions are always written on my face.  "Uh, I think you have a tick in your head.  But it will be alright.  I'm just going to call Dad at work," I said trying to sound nonchalant.  "A tick?  In my head?  What's that?" She asked getting a frightened look on her face.  "It's uh, it's a bug.  It buries it's head in your skin.  You probably got it on Monday when we went rock climbing.  It'll be okay I just am not sure what to do," I said feeling my skin crawl as I once again looked at the gross brown body.  She started bawling.  I felt shaky.  I eventually got her calmed down and worked out what I should do with Brigham.  The next day we took her to instacare to get it removed before her dance performance.  Even writing about it now makes my arms and legs feel weak.  I have decided we will not be back to Red Rock Crag anytime soon.