It Just Occurred to Me That I Don't Know If Anyone Emptied The Vacuum
Mila has been eying the stairs with an expression that's not entirely different from the way I eye cupcakes sitting on the counter.
She wants the stairs.
Specifically, she super wants to find out what happens if you put your hand down on the next step. I super don't want her to find out how very bad that idea is, so I spent five minutes teaching her how to scoot down the stairs on her butt. The hope is that if she happens to find an unattended flight of stairs, the pause required to get on her butt will be enough for someone with common sense to catch up to her.
It may work. It may not. Either way, her new little trick came with an extra side of fun. Little Miss Mila isn't quite tall enough to reach the next stair down while sitting on her butt, so she has to wiggle wiggle wiggle her way forward.
It's pretty adorable.
So I was sitting on the rug in our foyer watching Little Miss Mila wiggle wiggle wiggle and DID YOU SEE IT. DO YOU SEE WHY I NEED TO SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE?
Ants.
ANTS.
MOTHER TRUCKIN ANTS. RIGHT BY HER FOOT.
We have yet to make it through a spring without an invasion. We moved to get away from the giant ants that could survive every kind of poison known to man. Now we've found ourselves surrounded by little tiny ants that just keep coming and coming and coming.
You guys, while I was sitting on that rug, I was surrounded by literally thousands of ants. They were pouring in through the little gap at the bottom of our front door. They were EVERYWHERE. It was one of those things where at first you only see one or two, but then you see the world in a different way and suddenly there are stupid little ants EVERYWHERE.
So, I did the only thing I know to do when there's a crisis -- I vacuumed. Some day there are going to be looters working through our neighborhood and I'm going to grab the Dyson and vacuum up the mess they leave behind. I can solve all the problems with a vacuum. Illness. Natural Disaster. VACUUM!
VACUUM ALL OF THE THINGS!
The only problem with my coping mechanism is Mila. The little sprite with the big blue eyes never met a situation she didn't want to try to improve by plopping herself in the middle of it. So as I was trying desperately to vacuum up the ants, Mila was crawling into the middle of my nightmare. I escorted her to other parts of the house no less than 400 times in about two minutes because ZOMG, MOM DOES EXCITING STUFF.
The good news is that I had a lovely stash of DEATH TO THE ANTS in the garage. The bad news is that now I'm going to have to vacuum every little bit of Mila because YOU GUYS SHE WAS SITTING NEXT TO ANTS.
ACK.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Reader Comments (6)
She is adorable! You need peppermint oil.
I would pay good money to watch you solve our rioting problem with a giant vacuum cleaner.
Peppermint oil is supposed to work but if you know where they're coming in, sprinkle a white powder in a line - baby powder, cornstarch, whatever you've got. I don't know why, but ants won't cross a line of white powder.
I would BUY you a vacuum if you could make people stop rioting with it...
Then there is also pepper. If you lay a line of pepper across the front threshold, they will not cross it. Then to erase the chemical trail, Lemon juice.
To add to what others are saying, CINNAMON! Sprinkle cinnamon in the areas where you can see them coming in. Baby-friendly ant deterrent!
Just teach her to eat 'em. Just like little bits of crunchy lemonade! with protein!