All God's creatures

The list of bugs that I can tolerate is very short. I do understand that there are some bugs out there that have some purpose in this world and I'm fine with that. The moment they step one of their creepy little legs in my house though, all bets are off and I will squish or flush their buggy asses faster than you can say RAID.

The only bug that gets a pardon is the ladybug, they get a one way ticket outside instead of the business side of my shoe.

Regardless of any good qualities they may have, I hate them all; spiders, wasps, cockroaches and weird-ass beetles that I have to google just to figure out what they are.

But the bugs that win the award for "biggest jerks" are mosquitoes and ticks. Politicians too, for that matter. I cannot abide by something that lives off the lifeblood of another and offers nothing in return.

My daughter, however, loves all these nasties and more. If I am going to dispose of a creepy-crawly unfortunate enough to be found crawling inside my house, I usually have to pretend to put it outside first before I dispatch it into a watery grave. I don't return it to the wild lest it crawl right back inside.

Why the charade? Because my daughter has an extremely sweet and soft heart. She loves these bugs as if they were her friends, or worse; her own offspring. I don't want her to think her mother is a horrible person... she'll decide that soon enough when she is a teenager.

Remember this post? When she was befriending the flies that had gotten inside our house to the point of giving them names? And then she would plead with me to not kill "Sally"? Well, it happened again, this time with a significantly more vile creature.

We brought the kids home from playing in the backyard of a friend's house the other night. As I was taking Elise upstairs for her bath, she complained that "something was crawling on her", then she shrieked and batted at her cheek. The offending bug was thrown to the ground.

I took a look and my blood ran cold. I scooped it up in a baby food jar for a closer look and my fears were confirmed... it was a TICK.

Of all the nastiness on this earth, I don't think I hate anything as much as I hate the tick. I had a run-in with them before that still makes me shudder. I kept it in the jar so I could google it's ass and spent the rest of the night certain that our house was now infested with them.

The next morning I come downstairs to find Elise holding the jar and talking to her new friend, "Tina". She wanted to keep her new friend and "feed her and give her water". Ha... fat chance.

Now granted, she does not know how awful ticks are because I chose not to disclose their modus operandi. And thankfully, the tick never bit her.

But this befriending of the nasties has got to stop lest we end up run out of the neighbourhood for having some freak show menagerie.

"Tina"

18

I'm not going to lie. The past three months with Mattias have been... not great. Someone took my sweet lovable little man and replaced him with a very angry midget. A very angry teething midget. Who never actually got any teeth in, so I'm wondering what all the anger was for.

It's a good thing that even his temper tantrums are cute, because I was privy to one on a daily basis. Some days there were 9:00, 11:00, 12:30, 4:00, 6:00, and 8:00 showings. All that was missing was the popcorn.

It would go like this; Mattias would believe that some gross misjustice had taken place (diaper needed to be changed, he ate all his snack, the dog looked at him), so he would run screaming towards a wall. Stop. Turn around and look at me while he hit the wall and said, "UH". Then he would stomp his feet, mutter "UH" a few more times, then run screaming towards another wall to start the whole process over again. This would last about a minute, and then something bright and shiny would distract him.

All the while I would firmly tell him no, then ignore him, holding back crazed giggles that threatened to erupt every time the angry midget appeared.

I had no idea what was causing this behavior. He had just gotten over croup, and his gums were very swollen, but nothing ever broke through. But quickly as it started, the tantrums have pretty much dissipated and I have my sweet boy back.

At 18 months he still only has 6 teeth. He's just now fitting into the proper size of clothes (when he was 12 months, he was wearing 6/9m clothing, at 15 months he wore 12m). He looks like such a little man now.

He takes one 3-4 hour nap in the afternoon, nurses twice a day and sleeps through the night (oh dear LORD it was about time). He makes us laugh with his silly antics and love for dance. He loves to sing "jingle bells" and "jingle bell rock", and can actually sing the melody, just substituting la-la-las for the actual words. I sense the music is strong in this one.

He has a language all his own, but says; hi, ola, Mama, Papa, Gramma, carro (car in Portuguese), ao-ao-ao (what a dog says in Portuguese) bela-ba (belly button), agua-wa (a hybrid of water in Portuguese and English), and begungh (bird in ?).

He screams with delight when his Papa comes home. Or if you ask him if he wants to go outside. Or listen to music. Or have a bath. Or if he wants his chucha (pronounced shusha - it means pacifier in Portuguese). He does everything with enthusiasm.

Especially eating. It's hard to believe that a year ago, he wasn't gaining any weight and pretty much refused to eat. He's making up for it now. The boy can put away 4 bowls of steel cut oats in the morning. Then he wants to help himself from my bowl. He'll try anything and recently stole a spring roll off of my plate.

I miss my baby, but I dearly love this little boy who is now running around. Now if he would just stop for a moment and let me snuggle him.

Mr. Independent... the look on his face is him protesting Elise's help



Already a great little soccer player




His teeth... all 6 of them

Someone needs a haircut


Love