Cricket Lick-It

I love my J-Man for many reasons, but one is that he has the wildest appetite of anyone I know. Through him I've begun to eat sushi, Thai, jerky, Ethiopian, and learned that there are people on this planet who actually buy slim jims, eat corner store chicharrones for breakfast, pickle their own eggs in leftover pickle juice, prefer sparkling water with lemon to lemonade, and believe that adding hot sauce all over a meal is a compliment and not an insult to the chef.

Also, as of this summer, he's taught our boys to eat crickets.

See, hidden in those "Cricket Lick-it" lollipops are actual dead crickets. They were nervous at first. Who wouldn't be? MDG figured he'd do whatever PDG did though, and PDG wanted to be brave like J-Man so he went for it. He made it all the way to the cricket's head and kept on going.

MDG didn't quite get that far, but to be fair, MDG's cricket was embedded further down in the lollipop itself, and this was a near-bedtime treat that therefore had a built-in time limit. Maybe if we'd had all afternoon we could've found out just how brave he was.

Either way, I was impressed. We facetimed with Mama and Papa H who were impressed too. As for Big Sis, I have a great screenshot of her looking disgustedly sick as PDG licked away, but it's maybe not the most flattering so I'll spare the interwebs.

I'm not sure what delicacy they'll tackle next, but I can only hope that they don't start thinking that just any dead bug is fair game. Only ones trapped in hard candy and sold in trendy barbecue joints with just the right marketing to catch the eyes of a guy like their daddy.

Beating the BBs

Ok, before you read this, please know - we didn't tell you because we didn't want you to avoid us like the plague.  And we've been free and clear for a year now.

So....... have you ever been nine months pregnant?  And have you ever had bed bugs?  And have you ever endured both at once?

Yeah?  Me too.

The story is pretty simple.  Last January J-Man and I noticed we kept seeming to get bitten by something.  Neither of us thought much of it.  I knew itchiness is sometimes a symptom, and by this point I was feeling every symptom in the book.  Doctors were telling me how low PDG was and how likely it was that he would come early.  I was physically ready and emotionally a wreck.  A few bites didn't really register.

Then J-Man got a weird bite on his face.  Someone at work wondered what was up.  Allergic reaction?  Spider?  Or... could it be?

We've lived in NYC.  We know a few people who've dealt with the pests.  We had an inkling.  But denial can be a strong, strong state of mind.

That is, until we saw one.  A nasty, yucky, evil little critter.  There could be no more denial. We had bed bugs. 

So after hours of freaking out and googling everything on the bugs (a slight change from googling "ways to induce childbirth" and "what do contractions feel like) we started the work.

Our pest control asked us to launder everything, and seal all other possessions in bags.  

Mama and Papa H stepped in, helping us pack up all our stuff (including the super cute new things from the baby shower.  I packed and lifted what I could, while frequently sitting to catch my breath (or cry, let's face it, I was pretty emotional).

Our valentine's day weekend was spent in a hotel, partially because it was a romantic time, and partially because sleeping in our own bed simply led to even more third trimester insomnia.

When the pest control folks said they do two treatments, I thought I was going to flip the #### out.  Sure, they could say the fumes are fine for a pregnant woman and unborn child, but I hadn't avoided philly rolls and turkey subs for nine months to screw up my kiddo with bed bug bombs.

Luckily, J-Man was being a bit of a champ at work, so we took another mini-vacation.  We told no one, and went and stayed in a nearby hotel for a week.  Who knows what the front desk clerks thought was happening.  I took their shuttle to the metro, went to work, and came 'home.'  There was a McDonald's by the hotel that I frequented, uh, very frequently, and we made it work.

By the time we felt safe coming home we were approaching the due date.  Mama and Papa H came again, and helped to set up the nursery.  Even now, a year later, there are a couple bags of who-knows-what that we haven't  gotten around to unpacking.  (Yeah, we should probably just take them to goodwill since we clearly haven't missed the contents).

The good news is, by the time we came home with our bundle of joy last March 12th, we were convincingly bug free.  We could sleep -- in two hour chunks -- without fear of any creepy crawlers getting to us or our little angel.  

But man, the month of February 2012 is one that only now can I start to discuss without getting an overwhelming sense of anger/disgust/exhaustion/confusion.  How happy we were to make it to March, for more reasons than words can express.

Car and Mouse

Last night I was watching Forensic Files at 2am and saw the most horrific thing.

Ok yes, that show is like a real life CSI and so yes it does normally have pretty gruesome tidbits. But it has justice!

Also, yes, Sunday night's beautiful sleep was just a tease and I have returned to the land of he less-rested.

Here's the thing though. The scariest part of the show was not the murder. This guy wasn't too sharp so it took until the third, less fancy, attempt to complete his twisted mission. It was attempt number two that made me want to sleep with the lights on.

Turns out his wife, like me, has a fear of mice. So Mr. Not-so-nice-guy puts a couple of the critters in the compartment between the seats where he knows she'll reach to change the music. Next time she's driving she opens it up and whammo, all disgusting-like she has mice crawling all over the car and nearly wrecked. I had to lift my feet off the floor just writing that. Grossness! Can you imagine?!?  It was so blood-curdling a concept I thought I had fallen back asleep and was having a nightmare.

Maybe you haven't had the experience with mice that I have over the past ten or so years, so this doesn't sound all that bad. But after seeing one inches from my feet freshman year of college and having roommates try and fail to humanely trap it in a laundry basket, I've gone full-on anti-rodent and never looked back. Sophomore year we had traps that seemed to attract every mouse in the building to our radiator for a last supper of peanut butter and death. In New York  heaven knows how many sticky trap successes were followed by dropping Don Quijote on their Pathmark-bag-covered bodies. Then there was that time I opened a bag of Chex Mix and saw two beady eyes peering back at me.

Shivers just thinking about it.

This morning when I went to close the oven door I'd left open after baking and eating a tray of  cookies last night (which I think I deserved) I saw a dark spot an inch wide and three inches long. Without thinking I assumed it must be a mouse and jumped back. Yep, a grease spot in the oven. I mistake socks under the bed, shadows in the corner, even J-Man's feet under the covers sometimes, all for those terrifying little creatures. I'm traumatized.

Which is why, after countless episodes, I have found the first that I can categorically say I will never, ever watch again, regardless of my desire for slumber.