I can now add resourceful surgeon, to my list of talents. (Weak-stomached persons need to quit reading NOW)

My daughter had this big yucky welty red thing on her stomach. We've been treating it like a bug bite for the past few days, but the darn thing was just getting bigger & redder. Now - here in Texas we have these nasty little spiders called "Brown Recluse" spiders. Terrible things. They bite ya, and your skin DECOMPOSES on your body. Just ROTS right off. ARRRGGHH!! So I naturally became concerned that we might be dealing with a spider bite. I trotted off to the internet to look up symptoms of a brown recluse spider bite. After viewing many MANY disgusting photos of the spider bites in various stages, I became convinced that this was not what we were looking at.

I made her sit on the kitchen counter and I began inspecting this booger closely. And then I did what my mother used to do to me: Grabbed a straight pin. My daughter was watching me as I lit a match to the end of it, then dipped it in alcohol and wiped it with a cotton ball. "Wha...wait. What are going to do with that mommy?" She sounded very calm. Sort of like HAL in the 2001 Space Odyssey film. "I'm going to jam this straight pin in that welt and see what comes out." Welllllllll - I learned that was clearly not the correct answer to give her. It took about 10 more minutes of convincing that I would be VERY GENTLE and I would not jam needles in her body. I very delicately prodded the welt and easily removed some sort of scabby top on the thing. Yuck. And it was so strange. You could see INSIDE the welt. There was no blood. Just something that looked .... white. Kinda like a larvae. I started to freak a little - but I just made believe everything was fine. (Cause mommies have to make believe things are just fine, it's what your kid wants to hear. ) I nonchalantly asked her if she had any bugs bite her that she knew of and she said no. So I quizzed her a bit more. I asked her if she'd noticed any flea-looking creatures biting her then burying eggs in her skin... "WHAAAAT????" hm... She doesn't sound calm like HAL anymore. "Oh - I was just trying to be funny... heh heh heh". Yah. Like she bought that. Anyway - so then I tried to gently squeeze the welt but that hurt her. Hey - her lungs are very well developed by the way - but she's a trooper. Then I brought out the pin again and very carefully stuck it in the gaping hole in her stomach. I could touch the white thing. Good news. It didn't jump or anything. I gently tried to pry it out, but she didn't like that much either. So I got the tweezers.

Now - I've got to tell you. I'm sooooooo proud of this 7 year old girl who let me rummage around in her boo-boo with a needle and my eyebrow tweezers. She ROCKS!

I sanitized the needle again, and actually bent the tip while it was hot. Then I poured alcohol on it again, and went after the white thing. I hooked that sucker and was able to lift it slightly. Then I grabbed the tweezers and YANKED. That damn thing popped out and left a BIGGER hole in her stomach. I mean... it was BIG! Apparently - it was an ingrown hair. Not a larvae. Phew! And the hole it came out of didn't bleed or anything. Very very strange looking.

And in case you guys want to report me to CPS for my home-office surgery - I packed the hole with neosporin and put a breath-able bandaid on it. We will be checking it three times daily to make sure it doesn't get infected.

And my daughter? She gave me a HUGE hug for helping her. I asked her if she was mad at me, because it did hurt her a bit. She said "No. I know you were trying to fix it, and if you hadn't done that, I'd still be hurting. If feels a lot better now! You're a good mommy!" Awwwww.... makes me feel squishy inside! I think I must have done an okay job of raising my kids so far if I can take a pin & tweezers to my child and they still love me.

And that was what I did for fun tonight! How was ya'lls day?