Posts Tagged "mosquitoes"

Bring Your Own Proboscis

Dear Kid,

(Actual Invitation)

Please join us for a lovely buffet dinner. Bring your own proboscis. DearKidLoveMom.comPlease join us for a lovely buffet dinner. Light appetizers. Specialties include knees, ankles, elbows, back of neck, and calves. Slight danger involved but this is too tasty to pass up. Expect unseemly expletives from the buffet. Bring your own proboscis. Men not invited.

Meet us in the backyard while Mom is gardening. No need to wait for seating. Attack at your pleasure.

Excuse me while I go take a bath in hydrocortisone.

Love, Mom

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Nighttime Gardening, Fighting the Weeds, and Agreeing on Who Makes the Rules

Dear Kid,

What a lovely weekend we’ve had so far.

First we visited you, YAY!

Yesterday, we did a lot of gardening. The never-ending weed pit we call our entire property gives us plenty of time to spend together.

Last night we were going to go to an event at the Observatory but Dad decided the cloud cover would make it difficult to see things which would annoy me and frustrate him. Unless it would frustrate me and annoy him. Anyway we didn’t go.

Instead we decided to do some nighttime gardening. Weeding by firefly light. Someone (me) thought it would be a good idea. Someone (Dad) thought we should wear long sleeves and long pants. Someone (me) agreed to wear jeans but absolutely refused to wear a long-sleeve shirt in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity.

Someone (Dad) suggested he married someone who was silly and stubborn. Someone (me) didn’t disagree and compromised by putting on bug repellent. Out we went.

Someone (the Puppy) patrolled the area, decided it was safe, and assumed guard position by curling up in the mulch and going to sleep. Never seen him sleep in mulch before. He actually slept for a bit, got up, turned around, rearranged the mulch to his satisfaction, and went back to sleep. Dad tried to take a picture but the pre-flash kept waking the Puppy up. Imagine him with his head tucked under his wing and little baby snores floating around his head.

Eventually it got too dark to see what we were doing so we went in. Someone (me) of course had been thoroughly munched. Someone (Dad) suggested long-sleeves might be in order in the future. Someone (me) pointed out that it wouldn’t have prevented the bite I got on my face and if he didn’t stop talking and start helping with the hydrocortisone there would be bigger problems than bug bites. Someone (Dad) compromised by lecturing while he helped with the hydrocortisone. Someone (me) very maturely thanked him while ignoring the lecture.

Someone (Dad) asked if I planned to wear long-sleeves in the future. Someone (me) suggested he was out of his mind for even thinking such a thing.

Someone (Dad) has perfected his long-suffering sigh. He’s currently online, buying stock in whatever pharmaceutical company manufactures hydrocortisone.

Love, Mom

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The Mosquitoes Were Really Bad Last Night (Really, Really Bad)

Dear Kid,

This is not a mosquito. DearKidLoveMom.comI look like I have the measles.

Just to be clear, I don’t have the measles, small pox, chicken pox, or even a bad case of acne.

What I have are mosquito bites.

A lot of them.

Enough of them so that I expect to see a great reduction when I step on the scale.

Enough of them so that the Hoxworth Blood Center has called to tell me I’ve exceeded my donation level for the year.

Enough so that this year’s annual vampire ball is being moved out of southern Ohio.

Enough so that there isn’t enough hydrocortisone on the planet to handle them all.

Enough so that I look like I have the measles.

I did not invite the mosquitoes over for a festive meal. I didn’t invite them for a small nosh. I didn’t even invite them for a meal-free get together.

There was no inviting whatsoever.

Mosquitoes are not big on etiquette.

Or on spelling, since you can spell the plural mosquitos or mosquitoes and no one seems to care.

They are, however, big on helping themselves to whatever is in the ‘frig (and by “’frig” I mean my veins).

Dad was not sympathetic; Dad repels mosquitoes. Dad is a virtual mosquito umbrella. He says it’s because he was wearing long pants that he wasn’t bitten, but I was bitten through my clothing. Sleeves were not a deterrent. In fact, mosquitoes seem to have an affinity for red shirts. Or at least the shoulders underneath red shirts.

Excuse me while I go slather on a gallon or two of hydrocortisone.

Love, Mom

 

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The Great Mosquito Invasion of 2015

Dear Kid,

The mosquitoes are out. Really out. They are the size of wombats. Large wombats. Very large wombats.

Not only are they large, they are hungry. Swarms of mosquitoes buzzed my car on the way home yesterday.

Not only are they large and hungry, they have multiplied excessively.

A brown bat can eat about 1,000 mosquitoes in an hour. After several intense minutes with my calculator, I established that our backyard has enough mosquitoes this year to feed the entire US bat population for the next three years.

Mosquitoes turning to Mom for dinner. Or rather, AS dinner. DearKidLoveMom.comOn the other hand, the mosquito menu here is limited. They tried to chomp on the car but it didn’t provide a lot of nutrition. So they turned to Menu of Mom. Home cooked Mommy. Mama a la mode. Parental Popsicle.

I’ll give you three guesses as to how I felt about being the dinner entree for billions of bugs.

Not nearly as unhappy as I’ll be if they think I’m breakfast when I take the puppy out for his walk.

I’m considering starting a bat breeding program. And a purple martin farm. And a rescue program for anyone else who eats large numbers of annoying bugs.

How do you feel about mosquito pie for dinner?

Love, Mom

 

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5/3/13 Soccer Practice, Battle Dancer, and Starving Mosquitos

kitten-soccer-ball-college-humorDear Kid,

At soccer practice. Actually, Pi is practicing and I am making sure my chair does not suddenly defy gravity and fly away.

The girls are working on a new drill where they are learning to protect the ball, do some nifty footwork, spin, and take the ball to the net. I can only sort of hear the coach and a minute ago he said, “it’s like a ballet dancer” but it sounded for all the world like he said “it’s like a battle dancer” which perhaps is a better term for these very competitive soccer players.

I think I have a mosquito bite on my skull. Why on earth would a mosquito want to dig through all this hair to have lunch?

Over the years, we’ve gotten used to the idea that lots of parents thought we were spot on when we named you. Inevitably, there is a small regiment of people who share your name, and nicknames became commonplace. Pi, on the other hand, has never really had to share the name-light. Until now. There are three of them with the same name on this soccer team, and for the first time, she is having to filter out who the coach means. This makes the spectator sport of watching practice much more interesting as pony-tails whip around in unison.

Pretty sure this horde of mosquitos is from the catering department and I am being sniffed as a possible lunch buffet.

I love watching you guys in whatever activities you’re involved with, but watching this particular drill is about as interesting as watching trees grow. Which I am also doing.

Note to self: insect repellent is now mandatory for watching evening soccer practice.

Girls finished a water break and are heading back on to the field. Two of them attempted cartwheels—about the level of the average four-year-old who knows what a cartwheel is supposed to look like but has never been coached.  I was wondering if Pi was going to demonstrate her tumbling prowess. To her credit, she did not. Not sure if she held back because she’s got a lot of class or because this is soccer or  because her shoulder is bothering her—and it doesn’t really matter. She did the right thing.

A duck is flying overhead. It looks lonely and hungry. If I knew how to speak duck I’d invite it down to explain what-is-what to the mosquitos.

There appears to be an interesting correlation between how skillfully the girls play and how closely the coach is watching. Hmmm…

One dead mosquito. On the whole, I am not an advocate of violence, but in this particular case, I feel completely in the right.

Don’t forget sunscreen (and perhaps bug spray).

Love, Mom

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