Water Babies/Buggies

Last trip for the Higgins Household to the Beach pool. We have another pool party to go to tomorrow with our Sunday School class but I think we will have to sit it out because I think the younger is sick. =o( I can't get Ryan to stop drinking the pool water and I'm pretty sure he got that spore thing that's going around. I think Eric has stopped drinking it because I started pointing out flies floating in the water and told him that if he didn't keep his mouth shut, he might get a bug in his mouth.


I did get these great pix. Joshua is Eric's very best friend and I'm so grateful that he and his family were able to join us today. Joshua loves Eric so much, and it doesn't matter if he bites him, dunks him underwater, pushes him into the pool, or overhugs him, he ALWAYS is very loyal to Eric and their friendship. Yep, in Eric's excitement of having J there he was a little overly aggressive, in a loving way of course. So ALL of the above did occur (Some multiple times) in about a 2 hour period. I went to go check on J's bite and he pulled away from me and said, "It disappeared!" He did not want Eric to get in trouble. It was particularly busy at the Beach today perhaps because it was Saturday AND the last Saturday of the year that it was open. Plus, Terry came - so I think a little over-stimulation might have been a culprit too.

All in all we had a great time. Cris is in New York so our pool food stash was a little lean (she is great at packing lunches) and we ended up buying some food from the snack bar. Chips were stale so they gave me free french fries with the hot dog that I ordered instead. The Fries were great. The hotdog, not so much. Eric ate the rest of it, and he saw the bun before I could take it away. He did let me tear off the end of the bun. Consequently, he was particularly unfocused in eating dinner. A couple of times he ran from the table with his hands in the air as if to say "The sky is falling!" We turned on the Cars DVD to calm him down long enough to eat. I thought it was hilarious that Terry looked at me and said, "I think Eric needs a massage or joint compressions or something." It was nice that he recognized that.

So off to tub time. Well I start the bath water and begin to de-clothe the kids and I hear squealing. There was the funkiest looking bug swimming around in their bath water (ironically, earlier Kara and I were talking about our respective bug companies needing to come back out to re-spray). You could literally see the shivers going through Eric's body as he was freaking out. Honestly, I was a little freaked out myself, but tried to remain composed (as I'm yelling to Terry "C'mere!" to come rescue us). Poor Ryan was I think in a state of shock. Almost as if to soak up all the trauma in slow motion. He couldn't look away - no words, no pointing, just frozen in fear.

We relocated to mommy's shower ("On your mark, get set, go!" - works every time). Eric has totally forgotten about the incident as he is having fun playing with the shaving cream on the shower door and writing his name and such. Ryan, on the other hand, is diligently scanning the shower floor and pointing to everything and freaking out saying "More Bug!" No that is just mommy's hair. "More Bug" No that is just caulking (it's dark brown). "More Bug" No that's just tickle soap (the exfoliant in the body wash) "More Bug!" "More Bug!" Bless his heart he is all traumatized.

This is a picture of the the species (this is not an actual picture of our actual pest). I googled "household bugs, legs" for obvious reasons and found this picture at this site. Come to find out, it isn't such a pest after all as it is cleaning up after the bug company! It will just haunt Ryan.

This common house centipede (Chiropoda) is not an insect--it has 15 pairs of legs--but it can be considered beneficial as its primary food is small household insects

Isn't it disgusting? I'm having convulsions just looking at the picture of it. Oh, did I mention that the legs fall off? Terry describes them as "fragile." I was watching the bath water drain after he extricated the bug and transplanted it to the toilet water, and there are legs floating around. Pluh pluh pluh!!! Can you say BLEACH?