Of Cabbage and Ants

We went old-school with the book selection tonight during Jack's story time.  First, we read an Elmo Christmas book.  Probably should have put it away with the Christmas stuff, but he never actually read it until after Christmas...it was kind of low priority after all the other cool gifts and books.  Anyway, it was Elmo's 12 Days of Christmas.  I sang the whole thing and I think it is about the stupidest remake of the 12 Days of Christmas I've ever heard, even if it does have Elmo on every page.

Then we read his lift the flap farm book.  I can still tolerate this one even though it has been well-read.  There aren't many words and Jack lifts the flaps pretty quickly.  We came to a page with some vegetables on it.  Jack lifted the flap of a purple cabbage to see the inside of a purple cabbage.  Then he told me, "Tugger used to live in there."  I laughed and then I asked him why.  "When she was a puppy...no laughing."  I tried not to laugh but not very successfully so he asked me not to laugh again.  I was able to comply this time and we went on with the book.  Who knows why he thinks Tugger used to live in a cabbage but it was pretty funny.

Totally new topic - Jack was kind of excited a few days ago when he saw some ants by the front door...inside the house.  I wasn't.  I quickly determined that they were after a crumb on the floor here by the desk and vacuumed up the crumb.  Then, when the kids were napping, I got out the ant killer and went to work.  I sprayed along the trail they were taking from the door to the crumb and then I went outside to spray along the front of the house to prevent any more incursions.  

I haven't mentioned any of this ant business to Pat yet because he thinks that I don't deal well with bugs.  I don't really think that's true.  I may have called him a couple of times before we started dating to come over to my house and take care of some ants.  I probably could have taken care of them myself but how else was I going to get him to come over to my house?  (I did also provide home cooked meals, hem some pants for him and let him use my internet access too, but I'm sure he felt more manly when I called him over to deal with bugs.)  

Anyway, I think I've taken care of the ant problem all by myself and Pat is way off base about my ineptness when dealing with bugs.  Then yesterday, Jack says, "Look.  More ants."  This time, he is at another window and I didn't spray there because there were none there during the initial invasion.  

"How many ants are there, Jack?," I ask.  He tells me there are 3 ants.  This may or may not be true because he answers 3 or 4 for just about anything involving numbers.  I check it out for myself and he did see 3 ants.  But I find more.  I just can't figure out what they're going after.  I kill all that I can see, just squishing them with my fingers.  See Pat...no fear!  Then I figure they're just a few strays and they'll go away.  After all, I vacuum a couple times a week and there was nothing food-like in that corner.

Tonight, however, I found the culprit.  I was putting blocks away and decided to sweep my hands under the piece of furniture that is near that window in case there are any strays.  (Yeah, I'm hosting playgroup tomorrow so I'm being a little more "thorough" than usual.)  What my hand found was not a Lego piece, but something sticky and rubbery.  It was a fruit snack, compliments of Casey.  As I pulled it out, ants climbed all over my hand.  I cringed and frantically got them off my hand.  Now, hopefully they'll really leave.  And I had to call no men to fix this problem.  I will also renew the effort to keep snack time in the kitchen.