Bugs

Our family is still struggling with the cold bug we acquired last weekend. The only one of us that doesn't have it is Elizabeth. She has the constitution of an ox. The cold started out so mildly that I thought we'd all sail through it. Not the case. I tried to get the littles in to see the pediatrician yesterday. I wanted to get their ears checked before the weekend. The doctor wasn't in the office, so I hope we can make it through the weekend without heading to one of those overcrowded, long wait guaranteed urgent care places. The last couple of nights have been especially rough with Joel. He's been coughing so hard that he wakes himself up. He starts crying and saying, "Mommma, Mommmma." He sounds so pitiful that we go get him and bring him into bed with us. We'll have some bad habits to undo when he gets better.

We've also been dealing with bugs of a different nature. We've had problems all summer with earwigs and spiders in the house. Our other house was old and had lots of spiders, so I didn't think too much of it when I saw them here. However, Grace spotted a suspicious looking black spider at the top of the stairs leading down to the basement the other day. We couldn't get a good look at it. I called a bug spraying company right away. The guy came to the house yesterday and sprayed something that's o.k. to use around children and pets. He sprayed inside and outside the house. Low and behold, the spray didn't agree with the suspicious black spider. It came out of it's hiding spot and I slapped it with the fly swatter and took it outside. When I flipped it over, I saw the red hour glass. It was only a baby black widow and the guy who sprayed insisted that they're not aggressive spiders. Just the same, I'm glad to have gotten that done. We'll be on a regular maintenance schedule to keep any other univited guests out of the house. We're never lacking for excitement around here.