Things that go spit in the night

My children are ruled by the regular childhood vices. Pacifiers, diaper wearing past the age of 2 1/2, blankets, bottles, sleeping in their parents room; you name it they could turn it into a full blown addiction. Our largest offense by the world's standard is all the sucking that goes on at night.
It all started very innocently. My mother-in-law, who is omniscient in the ways of childhood and children, and all the sisters-in-law were huge proponents of the pacifier. They claimed that it had magical soothing powers, so I embraced it whole heartedly for my first child. She loved it, sucked it constantly, and couldn't live without it. Perfect. She slept like a lamb, (after the first 8 months), and hardly cried as long as it was in her clutches. Went merrily along with the pacifier for the first two years. She sucked it with passion that was only rivaled by the smelling of her blanket.
After 2 years of sucking violently on a rubber nipple there was a gap in her bite that she could stick her tongue through while her molars were touching. It was time to be done.
Being the intelligent parents that we are, we collected all 7 of the offensive nubys and we all took a trip to Target where they are recognized as a kind of currency which can purchase anything a 2 year old heart desires.
Oh, we were so smart, so crafty, sooo underestimating the brain of our 2 year old.
She cashed those pacis in for a 28 dollar barbie back pack and a new baby to boot. She sucked each one a final time (her idea, not ours) and set them in a little pile on a shelf and walked away. We thought we were home free!!
The first month was rough. I think that pacifiers and cocaine have the same detox process. After about 4 weeks all was well and I thought we had kicked the habit, and then the thumb sucking monster reared its UGLY head. Yes folks, she started sucking her THUMB!!!!! Oh the humanity. I hate thumb sucking. It is just plain nasty. I wanted to tie her up with mittens and duct tape, but my pediatrician advised other wise. It was normal, and age appropriate, blah, blah, blah.
I have accepted it, but not embraced it for the last 2 1/2 years, but now I am done. I can't take it anymore. I found some anti-thumb magic in a bottle and for the last 4 nights I have been acting out my diabolical plan. (cue the world domination laugh)

I have been planning this for a long time. I had to be careful, leave no traces of tampering with the precious thumb, it had to be all "nature's" fault.

My sister-in-law is a genius. She gave me the best idea...For the last month I have been telling my 4 year old that if you suck your thumb too much it runs out of flavor. I said usually when the thumb is all wrinkled and the nail is peeling it is a good sign the end is near. I casually remind her when I see her sucking away.
Her thumb has all the symptoms and was doomed to rot!

Saturday night I tiptoed into her room and secretly painted her nail with the most poisonous tasting stuff I have ever encountered. (I painted my own thumb, just to see how bad it was. YUCKY is an understatement)
Late in the night I could hear her spitting. Really hawking and drinking lots of water. I had to stifle my laughter.
She didn't wake me to talk about it, but the next morning she mentioned that her thumb tasted a little funny. I had to turn away and pinch the underside of my arm.

It is really sneaky, and awful, but I am loving it.

The stuff lasts for a while, so I skipped Saturday night. Sunday morning she was sucking her thumb again. I casually asked her if the flavor had come back and she said no, but she had decided to SUCK THE OTHER THUMB!! aargh!
Sunday night I tiptoed in like a thief in the night and painted both thumbs. I am winning for sure! There were several spitting episodes in the night. One I woke my husband for. We were both sniggering in our bed, a little sympathetic to the poor girl, but so smug that we had outsmarted the fox.
Every morning I think she is going to want to discuss the condition of her offensive digits, but she never mentions it. She just looks at them and wrinkles her brow while she smells her blanket. I know she doesn't want to hear I told you so, so she keeps quiet.
I can't believe the sucking is almost over, and I am not the bad guy.
I have enough nasty paint to last through the other 8 digits, just in case.

Tonight I am taking out the pinky.

Fruitie Puffs and a Hazmat Suit

I find myself experiencing my first (and unfortunatley not the last) winter in upstate New York. Let's be honest, it's practically Canada and is a far cry from the palm trees I left in Silicon Valley. At times like this I am glad I have a warm home--unfortunately the forest creatures are not so lucky and so they have decided to make my apartment their personal wildlife refuge.

It's been three days since we made the fateful discovery that we have mice. Yes mice. Real live actual mice. And not the run of the mill house mouse--no these are bonified white-belly field mice found only in rural areas. (I am told on the Internet not to worry becuase they rarely come indoors) Fortunately for us, these are the larger ones that carry lime disease and the hauntavirus.

There are three particularly disturbing things I would like to point out about this experience:

1-I called the apartment office and no one called me back. When I talked to them about it, they said sorry and that the person you talked to must not have thought it was a big deal. She said they didn't give mice a second thought. Excuse me? How are rodents in my living space not a big deal?

2-We had gone to dinner the night before and I had a sealed plastic bag in my purse that was full of snacks for Mia. Fruitie puffs, rice cakes, animal crackers and the like. Saturday morning the snacks are no longer in my purse. I found the bag behind my couch and practically empty! Which tells me that the mice not only crawled around in my favorite purse, wallet and cell phone, but also that they are large enough to drag the bag to a secret location and consume the contents. I'm pretty sure I just fed the whole family for the entire winter. Any ideas on how to sanitize a cloth purse or am I SOL?

3- Does anyone know what the hauntavirus or lime disease would do to a particulary small and cute eight month old baby? Am I the only one feeling alarmed here? So naturally like any good mother would do, I put on the closest thing I own to a Hazmat suit and sanitized my apartment. Lysol, Chlorox and a big scrub brush were involved.

The moral of the story is that no matter how clean of a person you might be, you can still be the unfortunate recipient of winter houseguests. But the happy ending (hopefully ending...) is that we have cought two of them and I have to admit that it was gratifying to see their little carcases leaving my apartment.