Ant-tastic.

Today I accomplished more than I have ever before accomplished on a Monday.

I took it upon myself to clean the playroom, a favorite room amongst the ant societies. Since T chases the kids around trying to stuff food in their mouths instead of having them sit at the table like normal human beings, there are ions and scores of crumbs and splashes all over the playroom.

Having my own experiences with ants in the house (not the pants) I knew there had to be a really good, sticky reason why the ants were congregating on top of one chest of plastic storage drawers in particular. Today, I wanted to find out.

After my breakfast, which consisted of more fruit than I usually eat in a week, I waited for the kids to leave for school and then began ruthlessly sorting through their toys.

I have been here for four full days. The kids have played in this room approximately 800 times. I have seen them use three toys.

Much to my pleasure, they don't have a lot of toys anyway. This is one thing that I really respect T for. She encourages the kids to play outside and to use their imaginations and as a result, they find little pleasure in electronic, light up, spin around, beep beep, flashy toys that take four D batteries and wake up the entire neighborhood.

I dumped a huge load of toys into the kitchen sink and returned to the playroom. After moving the pile of dusty, useless and unloved stuffed animals that are required in order to have children, I finally reached the drawers.

I had to move a box of those stupid cardboard blocks that some buffoon invented to make children cry when the baby takes a bite out of them, and two art projects that had been flattened by said box. And there was the root of the playroom ant problem.

A puddle of sticky, half-dry soy sauce.

REALLY?!

Yes.

I scrubbed every inch of this playroom, every toy and every surface. I disinfected every fabric covered object and vacuumed until the baby got nervous that I would never stop.

I've only seen a few ants in the playroom since. Yesterday I cleaned the kitchen and sprayed in there. Soon, they will all be dead and we shall rejoice.

I should probably also mention that today was R's birthday. I didn't even know it was coming.

T played it down, much to my surprise. She wanted R to have fun and be excited, but it wasn't the over-the-top production I would have expected. She doesn't spoil her childen in every way, only some. So I am learning to respect her more for all these things. My attitude toward her is much improved, and I know that is a direct result of answered prayers. So thanks to all of you!

I'm going to go watch a movie in the clean playroom and squash the remaining ants.