I’m a blogging ambassador for the CHPA Educational Foundation’s KnowYourOTCs program and all opinions are mine, mine, mine!

I live in the boonies. The woods. The wild west. ::avoids eye contact::

Sure, this is in south Florida, like an hour from Miami, but still.

We live in an area of the state that is chock full of woodland…and mosquitos…and poison ivy…and poisony other plants…and other scary things that this city girl New Yorker didn’t have to deal with before moving down south. (like snakes n frogs. ::barf::)

My kids (and I) love being outdoors and since it’s warm, they’re outdoors all year round. Swimming at my aunts house and beaching all summer, gardening with my mom all spring, running around and doing nature walks with me all winter, and nightly walks with John all fall. We have to protect these munchkins from all the scary skin stuff.

Kaya let’s me slather on anything I need to before she goes out. Rohan is so hard to pin down. (I shared before the footage of us trying to get sunscreen on him here.) So he is most often the one I have to capture after we come back inside to slather on anti-itch creams or aloe vera.

When I go for walks with my mom in the morning we both spray ourselves from head to toe (over our clothes) with bug repellant. My dad teases us for using all natural stuff. He’s like “just pour on some DEET and go!” but we never listen. (We don’t get bitten tho!)

I was clearing out some brush from the side of our yard and forgot to spray up before going out. My arms looked like two pepperoni pizzas when I came in. There were so many red blotch polka dots from bites and I was so itchy. I was so in the zone while I was cleaning the yard that I didn’t feel the bites. But once I came in. It was awful! I’ll never make that mistake again. I had to take an antihistamine, and rub on anti-itch stuff all night.

Here are four great summer bug tips for parents from Dr. Swanson of Seattle Mama Doc:

· Don’t use bug repellent on young infants

· Only apply to healthy skin and on outside of clothes

· Apply bug spray 15-20 minutes before going outdoors

· DEET is safe to use and VERY effective

The KnowYourOTCs troops have put together this vid to help us create first aid kits for the outdoors:

When I was a kid we didn’t do this. We just had to suffer until we got back inside, or cut our adventure short to go handle a cut or swelling bite. This isn’t just being Type A mom, it’s staying healthy while keeping the fun going too!