A Few of My Favorite Things

THUNDERSTORMS

Minus the heavy wind, of course.  There's nothing better than sitting at home in pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, reading a book with the sound of rain and the occasional distant thunder as background noise.  I sleep so very soundly when it rains.  Now, if only I could undo the damage my husband did when he taught my daughter to be scared of the thunder...Yes, Johnny, I blame you.  Long before she was ever scared of thunder, you convinced her (and me) that she would not get scared of thunder if she slept in bed with me during storms.  Naturally, that leads to a fear of thunder and a real good excuse to kick mommy all night!  Okay, I'll admit, I do enjoy the cuddles, especially now that my baby is about to be in the 1st grade!  I realize that these nights of holding her tight are soon to be over, and I will miss those moments when she hears a clap of thunder and comes running as fast as she can to cling to her rock.  All too soon, she'll be asking for the keys to the car so she can go hang out with her friends, and I'll be begging her to stay home because a thunderstorm is coming!  So, for now, I'll enjoy my thunderstorms.  I'll have plenty of chances to fear them later.

HEAT AND HUMIDITY

"The hotter, the better," I always say!  And everyone looks at me like I'm crazy.  See, here in Loozyanna (as they say around here), snow is a rare thing.  People look forward to the winters when the temps are usually between 40 and 60, only occasionally reaching the 30s, with a good chance (for about two weeks a year) of it falling into the 20s.  Summer lasts from May until October, after which we get about two weeks of true fall, and then it's the wet cold "winter".  Louisiana's 50 feels about like 30 in Northern Kentucky, and 20 in Northern Oklahoma.  Because of the humidity.  So even though it doesn't snow enough to stick but about once every ten years or so, winter in Louisiana is absolutely miserable.  Walking from your car to the house feels like you're trudging five miles through four-foot snow drifts.  Bone-chilling cold.  Then it takes a half hour to warm up once you're inside.  How can people enjoy the winters?  But they do.  So I say THEY are the crazy ones!  Maybe I love the summer so much, not because I enjoy sweating and struggling to catch my breath in the humidity that feels like one of those torture devices that squeeze the life out of you, but more because it is NOT winter.  I've lived in the snow and ice.  Hated it.  Drive on ice?  Insane!  Bears have the right idea.  Hole up for the winter and sleep until it's over!!  But no, kids have to go to school, and adults have to work, ALL WINTER LONG!  You can't go outside and play for more than five minutes before fingers and toes turn blue and start to fall off.  Kids have sniffly noses and sneeze giant drops of nasty liquids all over you.  Ugh!  No, thanks, I'll take my summers!  Send em outside to run around and use that energy up!  I'll take my heat and humidity over your snow and ice any day!  At least I know I live in Louisiana, and only have to deal with snow once a decade.  And here, when it DOES snow, THE ENTIRE STATE SHUTS DOWN!  Just like bears.  We all hibernate in our houses until it's over.  MY kind of place!

CHICKENS

You know I can't talk about my favorite things without listing chickens.  They make such awesome tenders!  Nuff said.

To Be Continued At A Later Date….

Ants in Your Pants!

Exhausted. Have a renewed hatred of all things crawly. BUT, I have officially rid my daughter's bed of the fire ants that attacked her! Relieved. Exhausted. Frustrated that five-year-olds don't listen when you tell them to not take candy to their room, so they sneak it in and hide the evidence under the bed. Hopeful that she learned this lesson. Exhausted and exasperated.

24 hours earlier:
Winding down for the night, just finished the last of the dinner dishes, and joined husband relaxing in the living room, daugher laying down in her bed, when the night is interrupted by a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream coming from Angelyn's room.  She comes running to me, holding her arm, tears already streaming down her cheeks.

"Mom, two ants bit me!!"  Oh, great, is that all?  My drama queen, at it again.  "Okay, show me where they are," I sighed, as I start to get up.  "Well, they're dead now."  "Okay, show me where they were."

I follow my Baby Girl into her room, turn on the light, and freak out.  Her bed is covered by what appears to me to be fifty entire colonies of ants!  The first thing that comes to mind is, "Holy cow, how did she only get bit by TWO ants?!?"  The next thing is, "What in the world am I supposed to do?"

I'm terrified of all small things that can crawl into tiny spaces.  I have a nervous habit of checking my shoes before I put them on to make sure there are no spiders lurking.  I laughingly call my husband my hero when he exterminates the occasional insect (he just doesn't realize how serious I am).  I have joked that I would rather have a snake in my house than a spider.  It's not really a joke.  I think I would.

So what do you do when you have thousands of ants in your daughter's room?  One little move, and you get attacked!  Naturally, you scream for help.

"JOHNNYYYYYY!!"

Only this is not a problem for just one person.  It's going to take a team.  My heart sinks as I realize that I'm stuck this time.  Suck it up and get moving.  Okay, here we go.

The next two hours are spent in a flurry, running from the bedroom to the front porch - shake off blankets!  Then to the washing machine - run hot water and drown the little suckers!  Back to the bedroom.  Careful, lift the stuffed animals with two fingers, inspect, and hurl them out the door into the hallway if they're clear, to the porch if they have even one ant on em!

All right, so to be honest, Johnny did most of the ant-inspections.  I was still freaking out.  But I tried to help.  I took the ant-free things to the washing machine.  Then, when Angelyn (supposedly "safe" on the living room couch) started shrieking again, I ran to her and helped her take off her pants (which had a straggler ant lurking until an opportune moment to take a chunk out of her leg), and threw her in the bathtub.  Johnny and I both reassured her that she was for sure safe in the water, so there she stayed until we finished.

Finally, with bed stripped, toys and stuffed animals cleared out, we found the reason for the invasion.  My lovely daughter, who is not allowed to bring anything but a cup of water to her room, had apparently snuck in some candy.  We found sucker sticks and Starburst wrappers under her bed, in the corner, behind her suitcase where we keep it.  Sneaky little booger knew exactly where to hide it so Mommy couldn't find it!  Sucker sticks were licked clean.  My guess is they had already gotten every last morsel off of those and went searching for more yummy food.  Found my daughter instead.  Maybe I'm just dumb, and maybe I shouldn't admit this, but I honestly never thought that fire ants ate sugar.  I thought they just ate people and animals and helped to decompose things.  I thought sugar ants ate sugar.  Learn something new every day.  I was really surprised to find fire ants in my kid's bed!

Found some ant baits in the cabinet and put one out under her bed.  Within minutes, they had located their new picnic and was taking it home to share the love.  Nice of them!  So, Johnny and I shut the door to Angelyn's room (like that will keep them from spreading around the house!) and told her they wouldn't escape.  She climbed into bed with me, and drifted off to sleep.  Her mommy was not so lucky.  Every time I closed my eyes, I had visions of creepy crawly insects climbing all over my daughter in her sleep.  Gave me the heeby-jeebies.

Next morning, I called in to work, took Angelyn to daycare, and went straight to the store for fire ant killer, and back home to tackle the Last of the Fire Ants.  By now the bait had done its job.  There were only a few last little stubborn things left.  The rest had disappeared, thank GOD!  I left the insecticide alone for the moment and grabbed a spray bottle with soapy water.  It seems ants can't survive long if you spray them with soapy water.  Glorious Revelation!  Harmless to Angelyn, Deadly to Ants!  I sprayed and sprayed for the longest time, until convinced that they were dead, then vacuumed (moving every single piece of furniture in her room), and then sprayed the insecticide along the wall where the ants were coming in.  Doused em good!

I rested well last night.  I believe my three-front line of attack will succeed in making my baby safe.  Of course, she slept in the bed with me last night, just to be sure (more for my peace of mind than hers).  This morning, I found two little scout ants, moving VERY slowly.  I'm sure they wouldn't have lasted long enough to make it back to the colony for their report, but to make certain, I drowned them in the soapy water and watched them shrivel up and die.  Must be a horrible death, but I don't feel guilty.  That's what happens when you mess with MY baby!

So, if you run across a colony of fire ants:
1) put out ant bait, wait 12 hours;
2) douse the remaining stragglers with soapy water; and
3) spray fire ant killer around the perimeter to keep them out!
4) PRAY!