The Wisdom of a 4 Year Old

I'm just amazed at what comes out of Little Man's mouth these days! I know where he gets most of it, but he clearly has an absolute understanding of what he's talking about.

For example, after lunch he tells me that I'm not to talk to him ever again. I started laughing. Oh you should have seen the way he looked at me! He was so serious! Then he told me that I'm not supposed to be laughing because he's not joking.

A little while later he said, "The star is purple (he's coloring) but you can't talk to me right now. I'm never talking to you again. And you can't laugh at that anymore."

A little while ago he was talking loudly and nonstop. I told him to quit talking because I was trying to put his baby brother to sleep. He replied "Just do what you have to do mom!" LOL!!!!

His latest kick is when he says something to Dad and I answer him, he will tell me "but I was talking to Dad." Or he'll say "But I wasn't talking to you." This happens about 20 times a day because he's always talking and I'm always just automatically responding out of habit ;) And when I keep doing it when he's talking to someone else, he will tell me that I'm driving him insane! ;) I have no idea where he's heard that one before!

And it really amazes me how damn specific 4 year olds can be! My God. This morning he would not eat his banana because he said it was full of yellow stuff and he does not like the yellow stuff. He usually eats bananas... We've been battling for weeks because Wal-Mart changed their store brand colors. His crunchy granola bars now come in a white package instead of a green one. He wouldn't eat them because they weren't in the green package.

So many times a day now I catch myself looking at him and thinking about how fast he is growing up. How quickly he is catching on to the world. How perceptive he is, and how well he is understanding things. It's all been in the blink of an eye. He seems to be growing leaps and bounds by the day. It's really hitting me these days that he's not my little baby anymore. And he really reinforces that when he insists on doing absolutely everything by himself!

Tick Hating Season!

Can I just say that I completely hate ticks! And of course here in the Northwoods there are ticks aplenty! I'm so squeamish about them! I'm fine with most spiders, bees, bugs, etc... but ticks just send my skin crawling!

My first experience with a tick was when I was at summer camp. I was eating rice crispies for breakfast and thought I had a rice crispie stuck on my chin. I tried to lick it off and when it wouldn't budge I picked it off and almost passed out when I realized I had been licking a tick!

Really, that wasn't my first experience, but it was the first one I was capable of remembering. One of my mother's favorite stories (that I've heard 10 thousand times!) is about my having a tick in my hair when I was probably a little under 2 years old. So of course I have no memory of it - Thank God!

Apparently, my mother and my aunt were quite the pair together. There are many stories about how crazy things happened when they got together. Anyway, so my mom and aunt were together when my mother discovered I had a tick in my head. They weren't quite sure what to do. So my mother says that she heard if you pour lighter fluid on the tick it will release. So they tried that. It didn't work. Then my aunt said she heard that if you touch a match to it it will let go.... unbelievably they tried this as well. Which resulted in my hair shooting up in flames and my mom and aunt patting my head madly to get the fire out. I guess I was bald for a while.

Almost 10 years ago, my x-husband and I were doing field work. One night after work in the motel room he was sitting with his back to me, crack showing of course ;) and I asked him since when did he have that big mole on his ass. It wasn't a mole, it was a tick! I wanted to go get someone to help, but it being in a sensitive area he was very insistent that I just suck it up and take care of it. I insisted on going to the store and getting a candle and some finger nail polish. Of course I tried the candle first!! Neither worked, so I ended up having to pick it out. It took me forever to work up the balls to do it.

In the 3 summers that we've lived up in the woods I've been lucky enough to have my husband around when one of the kids or myself have a tick issue. Until the other night that is.

The kids were out playing in the yard before dinner. During dinner I notice what looks like an ant in my baby girl's ear. When I got up to pick it out I discovered it was a tick! Luckily it didn't appear to have bored in yet. Of course I instantly freaked out and thought about calling my husband's brother. But it was in my baby girl's ear! And it was running around!! I totally panicked of course, but I eventually swiped it out with a kleenex and ran it outside to the fire pit! My husband has a special "tick" knife that he cuts them with, but I didn't have the guts to even open the kleenex :) the whole time I was running it to the fire pit I was hoping it didn't crawl out onto my hand! I was too panicked to get the child-proof lighter to work so I just flung it into the fire pit and ran back into the house quick!

Later when I was thinking about it, I figured that my husband's brother probably would have laughed at me and wouldn't have wanted to make the drive... it is a 15-20min drive. But I'm sure he would have done it, but then would have gossiped about it for a long time. So I thought of a better plan should I encounter a tick when my husband isn't home. I'll call the neighbors. They have 3 kids that play in their backyard (lined with woods), so I'm sure they are pretty good with the ticks :) I just really hope that it doesn't happen again!