Bugs! Or possibly piranhas.
Something is eating Sam alive in the night. Which may very well explain why he keeps coming into our bed and refusing to leave. His bed is next to the closet, which is open (it had those horrible sliding doors on it but we removed them because we could never get at our clothes) and over-full (we keep, um, everything stuffed in there). There could be a nest of mosquitoes or spiders and we’d never know except for the huge red welts that appear all over Sam’s body every morning. (They’re normal bites, he just has extra-sensitive skin. Also, lest you think I am truly evil, every morning = yesterday and today.)
So today I am faced with the task of removing all the junk that is piled up around Sam’s bed and in the closet and vacuuming like a mad woman. This is going to be So! Much! Fun! God I hate living in such a ridiculously small apartment. We do not have THAT much stuff, but there is not enough room for a good half of the things we own.
So not only am I worried about taking care of this bug problem and worried about what I’m going to do with all the crap I’m taking out of the closet (which probably shouldn’t be put back into it since apparently it creates a welcoming environment for BITING THINGS), not to mention feeling like an ass for being such a lousy housekeeper (you would not believe how long it’s been since the bedroom was last vacuumed), but I am ALSO anticipating some full-blown panic about how the hell we are going to fit a FOURTH HUMAN BEING into this place.
Oh, the drama.
UPDATE, 2:23 p.m.
Sam’s entire corner of the bedroom has been cleaned. I have not seen a single bug. I vacuumed everything, discovered that most of the junk stuffed into the closet is either intended for the Goodwill and forgotten or part of my amorphous “mending pile.” So that’s all been pulled out to the living room to deal with. I suspect that our sleeping bag may be the culprit; it’s old, has a rip in it, and was upstairs when we had something biting us up there a few months ago. It is currently on the porch and is destined for the trash heap. I am filthy and there is stuff everywhere, but the beds are clean and clear so I am calling it a win.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:31 am
I had a moment last night while I was reading in bed and heard some shuffling paper noises that were a) not me reading, b) not the fan running, and c)coming from across the room.
IT WAS UNA CUCARACHA CRAWLING OUT OF BOX OF MY STUFF.
I almost died. I probably would have if it was spiders.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Yikes. I wonder what it is. Bugs scare me. Good luck on your mission!
July 15th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Hope it’s not piranhas!!!
Mosquitos LOVE my kids, and they also get huge, ugly, red welts from them. What works for after-bite help with the itching for Sam? I’m running out of ideas to try.
Thank you :)
July 15th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Um, for lack of anything else appropriate I put some Weleda diaper cream on him this morning. He stopped scratching so it must have helped.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Maybe now you can put #4 in the closet when s/he is born?
July 15th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
True. And I did just stash all the baby blankets in the space I cleared up by removing EVERYTHING ELSE ON EARTH. So it’s nice and soft.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
When I was very young, I started to get spider bites all over me and my mother cleaned my entire room looking for them. Finally, she opened my mattress and found a whole colony of sorts inside of it.
So, there’s always that.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
1. Ewwwwww
2. I thought of that, but his mattress is foam and I don’t think there’s anything in it.
3. Ewwwwwwwwwwww