Ants, Homecoming, and a Flaming Heart

 

Picture of a sunset through a rainstorm I took a couple weeks back. 

1.) Invasion of the Ants 

The other day, a child who shall remain nameless decided to bring peanut butter into the kids' room. Some ended up on the bottom sheet on the bottom bunk of the bunk bed. 

That evening, I hear screaming. "Momma, momma, there's ants in my bed and I'm SCARED." 

Sure enough...

I get out the vacuum, clean up the ants, and spritz the area with vinegar. Bedtime rolls around, all the kids go to sleep. 

Later in the night, as I'm about to fall asleep, I have the thought, "I should probably check that bed again." 

It's a good thing I did. They had returned in greater numbers, and there was basically what amounted to an ant interstate of stinging fire ants traveling less than six inches from my sleeping child. I ended up just moving the kiddo to the couch. 

In the morning, there was no sign of them...or any trace of peanut butter. I'll give them this, they do a good job cleaning. 

2.) Homecoming week

It was homecoming week for our local school district, and Little Boy's elementary school participated in the festivities. That meant dress up days every week this week: he went to school as Mickey Mouse, as an assistant principal (complete with lanyard), and as a college undergrad student (sweatpants, a t-shirt, and sandals with socks emulated the look a little too well).

Career day. 

He really wanted to go to the football game, but circumstances just didn't line up for it (I would have had all three kids by myself-- too much!). We ended up having a movie night with ice cream instead. I'm very thankful he accepted it as a substitute. 

3.) Fall Gardening 

I've got beans and summer squash in, and the pumpkin plants are still alive and well. I also planted corn, but it's been slow to sprout and I'm trying not to get my hopes up. 

Whatever moment I can sneak out there has been spent on attempting to beat back the horribly prolific grass and weeds that are trying their best to take the space back over. I re-discovered (as I do every year) that repeated enthusiastic use of gardening tools results in blisters. I ended up losing a big patch of skin on my palm after a bout of enthusiastic shoveling the other day. I've purchased gloves and hopefully I'll remember to use them from now on. 

4.) Mud Monsters

I'm just going to share this picture here...

Gardening with kids in tow has been an adventure. 

5.) Finished Painting 

I still think it looks a bit juvenile, but it was fun to do, and it's finished now. 

I ended up leaving it outside the parish office on the front step like a foundling, with the donation form stuck to it with masking tape. I didn't mean to make the process so melodramatic, but, dangit, why do they open so long after I have to drop my kid off at school? 

6.) Vaccinations 

I'm what I would describe as "semi-crunchy" or "crunchy- confused". I use ibeprofan, buy whatever produce and meat is cheapest at the grocery store (versus buying all organic veggies and heirloom pasture raised chicken at the local hippie mart), and I've never tasted raw milk in my life, but I also do my best to garden organically, dose everyone with probiotics when we get sick, and I have my babies at a birth center without drugs. 

One area where I'm crunchy-confused is vaccines. The hard crunchy line is vaccines are horribly dangerous things that should never come within a mile of your child. My line is... complicated. 

On one hand, I am one of those crazies that thinks there might actually be something to that whole "vaccines cause brain damage that looks like autism" argument. Placement on the Autism spectrum runs pretty heavily in my family, and I've noticed that placement in a hospital as an infant and injections are a common factor for everyone especially affected (my mom is also crunchy-confused, so not all of her children were vaccinated equally). 

On the other hand, I'm actually afraid of my children contracting pertussis or meningitis. Both of those diseases are pretty dangerous to babies, and both are still around. 

 We also live near the Southern border of the country, and the thousands of people currently coming in aren't vaccinated. This isn't a dig at them, just a recognition of fact. Outbreaks of "vaccinated" diseases are far more of a possibility than they were in years past, or even in other areas of the country. 

So I vaccinate, but on an alternative schedule and I don't opt in for every single one (this way, I have both the doctors AND the crunchy moms mad at me). I've found this book to be a pretty good resource for researching all that. 

All this to say...this is why the girls got vaccines during their follow up doctor appointments today. Strangely, the baby handled it much better than her older sister. Barely fussed at all. I'm hoping we don't get the fever that sometimes accompanies it, but I guess we'll see.