Funky stuff

A couple of weeks ago, I had just come home from playgroup. As usual, I went to get the stroller out of the back. This time, however, I noticed something attached to one of the baby blankets I also had in the back of the car. It looked like it must have been a toy, a piece of some toy nature set or something, because it looked like it was made out of yarn. It must have stuck to my blanket when I was in the house for playgroup. It looked like a caterpillar, but the torso and the legs were so thick and fuzzy I thought it was made out of yarn. So I picked it off of the blanket that it was stuck to (yeah, dumb idea), and the thing moved. I FREAKED OUT. I hurled it across the parking lot, cursing the dang thing for being in my car, cursing the fact that I actually picked it up, and cursing the fact that I live in a place that could breed such specimens.



It all clicked later when my friend happened to post these pictures on her website, about the Oleander caterpillars that live in the bush outside their front door. Of course - that's where I had left my stroller. Yuck. I hate creepy things.






And then I just found this in Cash's room the other day. Oh help me. And I'm actually glad the picture is blurry. I'd creep out more if I could see the detail. I was trying to take the picture with my eyes closed as it was. You can't tell, but it was about 2 inches long, at least.


I haven't seen anything nasty in this apartment before. And it's right by the closet where all of our storage stuff is....




Speaking of what Miami breeds, I swear we have been sick about every other week since we've been here. And the inbetween weeks were filled with teething children (even Cash, getting his 2-year molars). That's made for some real fun times here, let me tell you. But it ticks me off, because my ONE consolation about moving to Miami was this: well, there's not really winter there, so at least we will get sick less.

Oh how wrong I was.

And we dont' just get runny noses here. We get mega viruses. Things that come with fevers and chills, stuffiness and congestion, and some form of pooping issues - all rolled into one. So I've tried to figure out why - when the weather here is good, there's not that change of seasons / winter weather to bring on all the illnesses. I've decided it must be that the hot, humid climate here just breeds all this nasty, funky stuff. All these foreigners bring it in and it just breeds here and mutates and just basks in the freaking heat and humidity. GRRRR. So much for my one advantage. And it's not like it's just the kids that get it. Every time they get something, I get something. I know getting sick is supposed to make you have a stronger immune system, but I don't know if I buy that. I got sick when I was a kid, and now I just have to go through it all over when I have kids. The stuff they get now isn't the same stuff we had 30 years ago, it's all mutated. So I don't even think all that getting sick as a kid helped gave me any advantage to being able to fight stuff off now.

And on a side note, whenever people hear that I moved from Wisconsin, they say, "Oh, you must love the weather here then." Last week I finally decided that, no, I would actually rather spend a year in Wisconsin than a year here, having to endure these summers. Maybe there's hope. There have now actually been two non-humid days since I've lived here. Let's hope there's more where that came from. We'll see what I say after the winter here.