Damn Skeeters and Bad Parenting

I am not sure what is going on but it seems that mosquitoes have descended upon Austin like a plague of locusts. They're everywhere. This onslaught arrives only about a week after hearing from my sister that a case of West Nile Virus (WNV) was transmitted from a mosquito to a human in Houston. I don't doubt my sister as a general rule but I really wasn't sure that could be true. I haven't heard anything about it on NPR and wouldn't I have known about this?

So I checked it out and she's right. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim the following:

"As of May 30, 2006 avian, animal or mosquito WNV infections have been reported to CDC ArboNET from the following states: Arkansas, California, Florida, Missouri, Texas, and West Virginia. Human cases have been reported in Mississippi and Texas."

The CDC web site provides a link to the collaborative USGS/CDC West Nile virus web site, which further reports that there have been 17 instances of "positive test results" for mosquito-transmitted WNV in Harris County (Houston).

So there you have it. That is more than enough to justify any mother's paranoia when it comes to the safety of her children, especially mine. Please pass the repellent.

So just as all this new information is buzzing around in my head while I'm driving home yesterday, I look in the rear-view mirror to check on the kids, and what do I find but a big fat mosquito resting squarely between Lena's eyes, sucking out her precious little baby blood and infecting her with God knows what.

Holy. CRAP. The mosquito may as well have been pointing a .357 Magnum between her eyes. Did I calmly pull over to the side of the road so I could sanely get the mosquito off of her face and out of the car? No, of course not. Instead, I recklessly continued down the middle of Loop 1 while looking back and forth from the front windshield to the back seat and imploring the mosquito.

"Shoo! Shoo! Get! Hey! Get off her!"

Quickly surmising that this tactic was not going to work (well, I'm not a total idiot), I switched to imploring Lena, in sing-song.

"Lena! Lena! Wipe your eyes! Can you wipe your eyes like at bath-time? Wipe your eyes!"

She stared at me with a complete blank while the little bloodsucker continued draining her. Then I reached back into the back seat to see if I could stretch close enough to swat the little offender. I could not. Both kids sat staring dumbly at me, little mouths agape.

It still had not occurred to me to pull over. I'm clearly a textbook example of what not to do in an emergency situation. I scanned the front seat. What would MacGyver do? On the seat next to me, there was a cell phone, an empty coffee cup, a half bottle of warm diet coke, and a box of Kleenex. That's it! I grabbed a handful of Kleenex, wadded them up tight, and then threw them one after another right between the unsuspecting eyes of my sweet little girl.

"Shoo! Get! Shoo! Off with you!"

At this, Lena wrinkled her brow and stared at me wide-eyed, in complete shock and I'm sure, disappointment.

Elias on the other hand had never seen anything so hilarious. He bowled over in uproarious laughter. What a wonderful idea! Let's throw things at Lena's face. Fabulous. He had some animal crackers on hand and immediately joined in, with I might add, superb aim. A little lion. A giraffe. An elephant. One by one, he threw animal crackers in Lena's face while screaming, "Shoo! Shoo!" and totally cracking up. I am an EXCELLENT mother.

I have no idea what happened to the mosquito. But Lena got a mosquito bite for sure. She had a welt that looked like a third eye for about 2 hours. For all I know, WNV is incubating as I type.

Lesson Learned #1: Pull over, for the love of God. The likelihood of causing an accident by trying to solve this problem while operating a moving vehicle is far greater than the likelihood of contracting WNV. (I hope.)

Lesson Learned #2: "Do as I say, not as I do" does not work with a 2 year old.

Tomorrow, I will attempt to readdress the No Throwing rule without coming off like a hypocrite.

And finally, a disclaimer: Please do not go getting yourself in a panic just because I freaked out in the car. Most of us will never see WNV. But if you're interested, be informed! Check out the CDC's Five Common Myths about West Nile Virus. And it couldn't hurt to keep some repellent in your car. And maybe in the diaper bag. And maybe your purse. I gave some to the pre-school: a bottle each for Eli and Lena labeled with their names in permanent marker. It's good also to keep a bottle at the front door and on the back porch so you can spray the kids on their way out the door. But really, there's no need to worry.

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I downloaded the cool mosquito photo from the Photo Gallery page of the Illinois Department of Public Health's West Nile Virus site. I don't know if I'm allowed to do that so this is me giving credit where credit is due. You can see more of their creepy mosquito photos at their site.