The Ants Go Marching One by One...

...And I Really Don't See How It's Any Cause for Celebration

I know, I know. I shouldn't complain about ants. California has so few annoying insect pests. We have a few small mosquitoes once in a while. They're annoying if one gets into your bedroom, but apart from that they're not much of a nuisance. You don't get eaten alive if you decide to dine al fresco on the back patio. We have some cockroaches, but they're very small and (knock wood!) I've never had any inside the house. Termites are a really common problem, especially the closer you get to the coast, but our house is fairly new and I haven't seen any evidence that they've moved in. And even if they had, they wouldn't be bothering us at all - just munching on our house and causing slow, costly damage.

So I realize that ants are so much less horrible than many of the bugs out there in other parts of the country and world. I've seen the mosquitoes in Maine - they're so big you could saddle and ride them. Ditto the water bugs in Louisiana. And let's not even get started on Australia, with all their deadly snakes and spiders and whatnot.

All of that said, it is still pretty nauseating to come downstairs in the morning and see your white kitchen sink covered with ants. Sure, they're tiny little brown ants, not fire ants or anything, but STILL. Gross. This has happened every morning for the past 10 days or so. Seems no matter how clean (or, let's face it, dirty) things are, the ants keep coming back. Sometimes they only want water. Sometimes they find a teeny tiny half of a raisin that Katie left on the floor. (That's the worst - our floors are dark brown so sometimes you don't see the ant trail until you've stepped in it - AUGGH!) I wrote a little song parody about it:

The ants are in the compost bin, Hurrah! Hurrah!
The ants are in the garbage can, Hurrah! Hurrah!
The ants are in the recycling now,
I'd like to get rid of them all, but how?
And they all go marching down
In the sink
Just to get
On my nerves
Dang, dang, dang!

Furthermore, you guessed it - I don't want to spray them with horrible chemicals. They don't call me "Crunchy Mom" for nothing. I have some borax traps that actually work pretty well, considering borax is relatively harmless to the environment. But, they take several days or even weeks to work, and I obviously can't put them anywhere Katie will find them. So that pretty much means I can't use them at all.

Looks like I'm going to have to be extra-super-vigilant about cleaning up the kitchen before bed every night. UGHHH. Right now my evening routine is: Put Katie down. Brush & floss so I won't be tempted to eat dessert. (Or, skip this step and eat ice cream directly out of the carton.) Veg on the couch with iPad and Mad Men. Stay up too late and vow to go to bed early the following night.

Not much room there for chores. I'm sooo tired by the end of the day! But I'm also tired of finding ants in the kitchen in the morning. Sigh...