Ants in my Pants

A few days ago I had a twitch. A twitch at the nagging thought that it had been a long while since the early spring-summer ant invasion. A twitch of the eery premonition sort as I found out last night. Ants have returned indoors. They never disappeared from the great outdoors known has my yard. I tried, with chemical warfare in fact. It won a few battles, but ants have unlimited soldiers.

Last night as I began to climb into bed I saw one pesky little creature on my ceiling. So I looked at the known entrance and found a dozen or so sniffing around. I was going to bait them, but the entrance in in a crack in the windowsill right above my pillow. When these unwanted visitors come I always find one or two creepy across the vast yellow cushion, enticed by my sweet smelling lotion. Seriously, one woke me up in the middle of the night as it crawled across my eyelid (shivers).

So I sprayed my room, then inhaled the poison as I laughed maniacally. Today I made the rounds outside the house, but I can't find their line. I think they've gone underground. Not to hibernate though, no they are planning their revenge. How do I know? They sent me a message in the form of a single scout.

Tonight while reading the ever enticing B. F. Skinner (required) I felt oddly not alone. A phantom brush here and there on my leg. First my ankle, then my calf, then my thigh...and I had a flashback to 2001. For eighteen years I'd battled the weird prairie land called Lamar and never had a strange encounter. But there at work, alone with the dusty floor I felt a presence. A presence creeping up my pants leg. I shook and shook and patted down that denim flare, yet there remained a foreign object. When it hit the narrowing of my pants at upper-thigh there was no denying something was crawling up the inside of my pants. So I ran to the back corner, dropped trouser and stepped away as a four inch stick scurried over the denim mound. How thankful are we all that no one choose the next five minutes to rent a video?

Flash forward to the safety of my living room and I just did the same thing. Although I saw nothing on my leg nor my bright white pant. Ghosts I assured myself. And yes, I take ghosts over creepy crawly insects. And so it was that I had a ghost BFF for the next 20 minutes, happy as could be, when BAM! The little sucker of an ant rushed toward my hand. It may have fooled me, but I'm quite large in ant dimensions, fast too. Plus I was armed with some unwanted study aide candy wrappers, all the better to smash an ant with. Game on.

Good Girl Caught Pink Handed

The little girl you see below has insisted on using a spoon to eat her "g-gur" for months. Like four of the five months she's been eating "g-gur". Sure it was disastrous at first. Yogurt dropped on the carpet, flung on the walls, smeared on her person and clothing. We ate it before bath time and and washed lots of bibs. No big deal.  She slowly mastered the art of loading the spoon and lifting it to her mouth. About two weeks ago I applauded myself for patiently teaching her, because I had one smart little girl who made nearly no mess. 

Then came September and with it an abandon for cleanliness. She started holding the spoon in her left hand (pretty sure she's a righty) and dipping her right hand into the yogurt so she could shove a large berry tasting fist into her mouth. Why leave it at that when more fun is to be had dumping the yogurt on her tray and painting with it before licking it off (fingers, spoon, tray, whatever)? When life's that good you need multiple yogurts a day!

So this morning I applied my degree and put a behavior plan into action. We started using the spoon together for a couple bites, then she did it on her own and all the while I'm saying, "Good girl. Using your spoon! Good girl!" That good girl did so well I forgot that she's one, with a short attention span and no idea what messy means. A few seconds after I checked my school email I realized my mistake of relaxing on the job. 

"Pippa!" I gasped, ready to scold her for using what must come naturally. 

She looked up surprised and a little alarmed. She does hate to be reproached in a firm or harsh tone. It causes many a tear. Holding out her pink covered hand she said, "I a goo(d) girl".