Ants Marching

I hate ants! They are my enemies! As a science girl, I have respect for all living things (except spiders...they just creep me out), but the ants have crossed the line. You know, I can deal with the occasional insect that mistakenly wanders into our cozy home, blindly looking for shelter or food. But ants are on a mission. They know exactly what they're doing, and they do it in mass! They're a frickin' army!

I never remember having an ant problem before having children. In fact, the place that ants are a chronic problem for me is right under Jackson's chair at the kitchen table. At one point this ant season I was watching them intently trying to discover their entry point into our fort so I could secure our borders. It turns out they were actually camping out under our hardwood floor and emerging from the tiniest crack directly underneath Jackson's chair like a dog waiting on crumbs to fall. Clever little things. All day I fight to keep the floor clean around his chair. Then after supper tonight there are large crumbs in a 3-foot radius surrounding his chair. HOW DOES HE DO IT? Doesn't he know I'm fighting an ant war here?

Today I actually made a mini-science lesson for Jackson out of them. "Wow, Jackson, look at how the ants are using teamwork to move that big chunk of food across the floor. See?" "Yeah, mom, that's cool!" "OK, now bring me the vacuum."

Tonight as I looked at the remainder of Jason's birthday cake sitting on our kitchen counter I wondered aloud what would happen if I left it on the floor for the ants overnight. Would there be a clean plate in the morning (one less dish to wash!)? Would they all die of sugar overdose? Or would the cake increase their strength and numbers so much that they used their incredible teamwork to carry us out of the house in our sleep, thereby officially taking control of the house?

I hate ants.

ps...this blog title was inspired by the worship pastor at our awesome church who performed "Ants Marching" last Sunday in church. It fit really well with the sermon, which was on consumerism. Check it out here.

Yuppy Camping

I woke up this morning to the sounds of birds chirping and a rooster crowing while I was sharing a twin-sized air matress with my 4-year old son and my 9-month-old daughter in a tent, and I thought This is the life! It all began about 6 weeks ago when Jackson mentioned that he wanted to go camping. I placated his request thinking that, like so many of his self-proclaimed great ideas, he would probably forget all about it in a day or so. But that didn't happen. He mentioned camping several times in the following weeks until finally I realized I was going to have to take this kid camping one way or another. Now, I'm not opposed to camping, but considering that Jason and I have only gone camping twice in our adult lives (and those trips were with very experienced campers who pretty much did all the planning and work) the image in my head of my family camping went something like this: Jason and I would struggle to put up a tent, struggle to build a fire (and may not even succeed at that), completely exhaust ourselves, and be pretty miserable. I would do all of this with one hand of course since I would have a 20-pound 9-month-old on my hip the entire trip. I just really didn't see it happening. Finally I had a solution! I called my parents and asked if we could camp in their backyard one night. I figured that Jackson really wanted to have the experience of roasting marshmellows on a fire and sleeping in a tent. All the other details (you know, actually being in the woods, etc.) wouldn't really matter to him. We made the plans, and this weekend we did what I call "Yuppy Camping".

For those of you who are new to the concept, Yuppy Camping is all the fun of camping with all the comforts of being at home. We started this mini-vacation by doing some strawberry picking at a farm close to my parents' house.

Friday night, Jackson played with his cousins in the sandbox and on the swingset, we roasted hot dogs in the fire, and my dad played his favorite oldies songs on the CD player while we made s'mores. While we were waiting for the stars to come out, my mom read books to her grandchildren. We did a little stargazing and then retired to our tents in the yard. (Since I started this post saying that I shared an air mattress with both my kids, I feel the need to say that Selah slept in a pack n play in the tent. She woke up about 5:45 to eat and then went back to sleep in my arms until about 6:30.) Here comes the really yuppy part: When we woke up, we all went inside. The girls played a computer game, while Jackson watched Saturday morning cartoons, and my parents and I made breakfast. We spent the rest of the morning playing outside, picking black cherries out of their tree, riding the golf cart around the farm, and sitting under the shade tree while Jackson and Max played in the tent. It was PERFECT!

I'd give Yuppy Camping experience #1 two thumbs up! Yes, we're tired, but not from hauling coolers of ice or 40-pound backpacks to a campsite. We're tired from spending a full day making tons of memories with a few of the most special people on the earth. That's my kind of camping!

Roger and Grumpyus

For the first time yesterday Jackson played with imaginary friends. Their names were Roger and Grumpyus. We were outside pulling up Bermuda grass in the flower bed when Jackson started telling me that Roger couldn't eat these plants because he was allergic. Grumpyus, however, was not allergic and he could eat the "magic plants". A few times I heard him talking directly to these imaginary friends, and I just laughed to myself. On one hand, I love seeing his active imagination at work. Jackson LOVES pretend play of any kind. When he was younger, he constantly asked me to "be" Elmo or a mean tiger or anything else his mind could dream up. However, seeing him play with imaginary friends made me wonder if I did the right thing quitting work and pulling him out of daycare. I think he really misses having friends his own age to play with, and I don't do an exceptionally good job of creating opportunities for him to socialize with his peers. When he starts school in the fall will he be "the weird kid" who doesn't really know how to play with others? I know deep down that staying home was the right decision. I see him growing intellectually, and I love being able to share all those moments with him. So maybe I did cause him to play with imaginary friends...but I sure am glad I was there to see it happen!