When the ladies came over for the mom’s meeting this week, my living room was not so full of camping gear, tents, sleeping bags, and luggage that it was impossible to sit down on any of the furniture. The mom’s did not have to walk directly through the mess packing area in order to get to a clean area of my home.
When I learned the evening before our camping trip that the temperature was supposed to get down into the 30′s, I did not dream all night about being cold. The next morning I did not make the children pack a t-shirt, turtle neck, pajamas, sweat shirt, wool hat, and wool socks to sleep in.
I did not dread getting up in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold and going up the very steep hill to take small children to the bathroom. I realize that this is part of being a mommy and I never wish that they could just hold it until morning.
I was not the only person that I had to take to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I can certainly go all night without using the bathroom, especially when it is cold and you have to go outside and hike up a very steep hill in the dark.
I most certainly did not hike up the very steep hill in the dark in the middle of the night with my husband. If our kids can hold it, then so can we.
In the middle of the night when my husband told one of our sons to go ahead and just go behind the tent to relieve himself, we did not hear rushing “water” just a minute later suspiciously close to the tent, nope not us. If we had we certainly would not have been too afraid of waking the other children to tell him to move further away. We did not simply giggle together and go back to sleep.
My husband did not wish that he had gotten up to use the bathroom with our son instead of with me.
If Carter had had a tick I would have made certain to get the whole tick out of his shoulder. I would not have pulled it out in several pieces and there would not still be a tick mouth in my baby. (YUCK! Anyone know how to remove a small piece of tick from a human body? Well theoretically, in case this were to ever actually happen.)
When we got home and my husband was emptying the water from the ice chest out the van door onto the drive and some splashed onto Matthew’s leg, Matthew did not say, “Dad, Dad, stop Dad. What are you doing? You can go into the house for that. Dad!” He did not think that his dad was relieving himself in our driveway.
We did not arrive home to find a huge surprise waiting for us. A very tangible manifestation of others love for us and an answer to a question that we were just discussing. I am not using this as a tease to get you to come back in order to find out what we discovered when we got home.
Read more about camping with a large family.
Read more of our funny adventures. I now know you just want to laugh at me and you don’t care about how to save money by making your own laundry detergent or your own custom color chalkboard paint. You aren’t interested in teaching science through nature journals or help with your children’s memorization work. So don’t check out any of my other practical categories listed at the top of the page either. I can take it. 
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Sounds like you did NOT enjoy your camp trip!! Tics: I heard that it is ok to leave the head in. If you use something to get the tic to back out it will regurgitate toxins in the person as it backs out. It is better to get the body off: the part that holds the toxins. The head does not contain anything dangerous. At least that is what I heard from a Dr. Just in case you DO have a tic situation on your next camp out.
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Ticks – ugh! We’ve had the head stay in, too. We’ve simply put antibiotic ointment on it, and checked it several times a day. The head has worked its way out on its own in a few days and we just scraped it off. We made sure to boost the immune system with some emergen-C. I think we even poured a little hydrogen peroxide on the area as well.
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I’m really excited to hear about what you found on your door step.
And to answer your question, we are trying to get to the point where we have our house paid off as well. We want to get ALL things of debt taken care of. =) How about you? Do you have similar convictions on this topic?
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Ticks….a tried and true removal method…cover the tick (& skin around it) with a glob of dish soap or vasaline, wait a few minutes, (it will pull its head out) wipe with a cottonball or terry towel. Head and all! friended you on ravelry…love your blog!
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Your “not me” stories are SO funny! We also did NOT accidentally leave the head of a tick in our tiny son, and it did NOT totally creep me out. Since it was NOT in there, I was NOT finally relieved when the bump finally went away months later.
On the dish soap trick, my husband sprays wasps with a dawn dish soap/water solution, and it kills them, so I dropped a drip of dawn on a bug in my kitchen, and it died immediately. I will remember your trick for ticks Katie, thanks!
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