Somewhere in the last few weeks I’ve been dealing with memorial cabins, insurance paperwork, lawyers, Royal Caribbean customer service, and approximately fourteen thousand emotions I didn’t order.

So naturally, life decided my next emergency would be a mosquito.

Parenthood has impeccable timing. It waits until you’re already down for the count and then hands you a smaller, dumber problem, like it’s trying to be helpful.

Tonight Kris, the little girls and I were outside by the pool playing Skip-Bo, sprawled across our giant round patio chair with the little pop-up table between us, cards everywhere, taking turns, arguing over whose turn it actually was, watching the sun disappear. It was one of those evenings that reminds you why you work so hard in the first place.

It was peaceful.

Too peaceful.

That’s usually when nature sends in an assassin.

Out of nowhere I spotted what can only be described as a Jurassic Park mosquito making a direct flight toward Harper’s face. Specifically, her nose.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a mother react to an incoming insect headed toward her child, but I became a ninja. There was no thought process, no strategy, just an instinctive death grip out of midair that would have impressed Mr. Miyagi. I don’t even remember moving. One second there was a mosquito. The next second there wasn’t.

Crisis averted.

I felt powerful for about four minutes. It’s not every day I get to solve a problem completely, on the first try, with my bare hands. Turns out that’s all it takes , apparently I just needed the problem to be a bug.

Fast-forward to midnight. Harper comes into my room.

“My legs are itchy.”

Immediately my brain connected dots that may or may not have existed. It wasn’t alone. That mosquito had backup. It survived just long enough to radio headquarters.

Target acquired. Send the squad.

And listen… I know it’s a bug bite. I know that. But some part of my brain has been running on high alert for weeks now, waiting for the next thing to go wrong, and it took one look at Harper’s legs and said “there it is,” with something close to relief. At least this crisis I could actually fix.

“No problem,” I tell her. “Mommy has itch cream.”

She looked at me with the same expression I imagine surgeons reserve for people who suggest fixing a broken leg with duct tape.

“No.”

“…No?”

“I don’t need itch cream. I need unitchy cream.”

Honestly? Solid argument. Why are we marketing products by the problem instead of the solution? Who wants “itch cream”? Give me the stuff that makes me unitchy. The branding writes itself.

We reached a compromise involving hydrocortisone and what are apparently no longer bug bite patches. They are now officially unitchy stickers. That’s their name forever. I don’t care what the package says.

Meanwhile, before I climbed into bed, I made one last trip outside to verify Kris had put out the mosquito treatment. Because we’ve lived here for years without a mosquito problem, and I’d like to keep it that way. This backyard has survived Texas storms, clay soil, flood water, children, pets,pools, trampoline gymnastics, and whatever project Kris is halfway through this week. It will not be defeated by one tiny vampire with wings, and I will absolutely not be told there’s something in this life I can’t personally strong-arm into submission. I’ve had a very long month. I need to win at something.

Not on my watch. Especially not if it’s dumb enough to come after the kid with the world’s greatest pharmaceutical consultant.

She doesn’t want itch cream. She wants to be unitchy.