Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Baby powder: cure-all

So apparently baby powder is the new duct tape. You know how I always profess my love for dry shampoos? Well, to tell the truth, I rarely actually have any, and out of laziness I just use baby powder because it happens to be around. Put some at the roots, work it in, brush it perhaps, and I'm done.

Then after my beach post, everyone tells me it's the best after the beach to get the sand off. Check. Got it in my beach bag for next time.

Well, back to my bug issue. I think there are tiny tiny ants all over. And some other tiny variety of bug/spider as well. I was discussing this issue with a friend the other day, and she remembered that once a friend of ours had ants so she put baby powder all over the floor, left it for a while, and apparently they went away.

Hey - that sounds easy enough. I'm totally down with trying something that I already have around anyway because how great would that be if it really worked and was just that simple?

Let me just say, this is now my least favorite of the baby powder remedies. I probably should have at least googled it to see what anyone else's experiences had been with it. But I didn't. I just decided to dump a bunch of baby powder all over the floor and some along the corners of the counters last night. This morning I wake up to a thin coating of baby powder...on everything. Every surface, every drying baby bottle, every everything is covered in baby powder. Because it didn't just go on the floor and sit there, it poofs up as it goes on, and any air blowing blows it up in the air again and then it settles down wherever.

UGH. So I'm in a bit of a panic trying to get it all up this morning before the babies get near it becuase I know it's really bad for them to breathe in the dust. So I try sweeping. Duh. More baby powder flying around the house. I try to vacuum it. It just keeps blowing out the back of the vacuum. So it became such a tedious process. Imagine having cornstarch or flour or something all over your house - just doesn't clean up so nicely. I wash down every little item covered in dust, the fronts of all the cupboards, counters, blah, blah, blah. (And our house is mostly just one big kitchen/dining room/living room, so it's not like it's one isolated area.) It takes forever. Meanwhile Cash is having a great time with this cool white stuff that makes funny patterns and tracks all over the house. I'm panicking a little because I've got to get to an appointment for a helmet check for Ashton, but I'm up to my knees in baby powder and can't get all the kids out and ready without getting them covered too until this mess is cleaned up. I keep trying to throw finger foods at the babies to keep them entertained and contained in their high chairs, but we're actually really low on food. I look in the cupboards and grab a can of pineapple and open it. Dang, I didn't notice it's crushed. Not such a great finger food. Find some peaches instead.

I finally get things cleaned up and just have to grab the kids still in their pjs and run. I throw on a hat, and grab the babies. Yuck. They're covered in peach mush and jam and whatever else from breakfast. Even mushed into their bums from sitting on it and squishing it around. Ugh. It will have to do. I grab some other clothes in case I get time to get them dressed later.

At least I'm feeling relieved and hopeful that the bug problem may be over.

So we get to the waiting room. There are quite a few people in there, and more coming in the longer we sit there. But when we first sat down I was so embarrassed at the look of my disheveled children (they didn't even have cute pjs on!), that I thought, well, I haven't had a spare second and I'm finally sitting, so I'm just going to change them here on my lap in the waiting room. I know - that's probably not really cool to be all hygenic in a waiting room, but it was just that kind of day. So I start changing them and pull a diaper out of my diaper bag because they are soaked to the brim. The diaper is full of ants. Aahhh! So now even my diaper bag that was sitting on the floor of my house has been infested?? Oh SICK. I'm trying not to show how much I'm freaking out or make a huge scene. So I try to pull out another diaper. Full of ants. And the third. I have no other diapers, and my kids are soaking, so here I am, in the waiting room, already turning it into my personal bathroom in front of everyone, and now I start picking ants out of the diapers I am then going to put on my babies. COULD IT GET ANY GROSSER????? Is there no shame??!?? OH. MY. GOSH.

So fast forward to when we get home, after the long drive in traffic, after getting chicken nuggets on the way (wow, you really do get so much more lax so much more quickly with subsequent children!) because I'm already mentally worn out and am sworn to NOT be cleaning up anymore this morning by making lunch. So I get home, and after a few minutes realize in my rush, I'd left the can of pineapple out. I never leave food out since this whole bug thing. I go to pick it up, and whoosh. Bugs go scattering in all directions. Tons of them. Auughhh!!!! So now I've spent an hour and a half cleaning up baby powder in the morning, I still have bugs, I have to now chase this batch down, and I remember I still have to go through all the deep dark crevices of my whole diaper bag to exterminate whatever is in there!! Really, I DO NOT have time for this! I am so NOT happy.

What a day.

I'll spare you the rest of the details, but I guess the moral of the story is I should just get a dang exterminator and save myself all this trouble. Strike one, baby powder.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes. Get an exterminator and keep using one until your bugs are gone. I have lived in humidity and that is the ONLY WAY to really get on top of the problem. I know that one worries about spray with babies BUT it is either BUGS or SPRAY. I went with spray. With the bugs, I felt the only way to get them out of my life was to strip naked and run leaving everything behind.
Not an option. Get an exterminator ASAP.

Anonymous said...

Oh, my goodness! What a day you had. I stayed up to laugh over the British Comedies and was repaid with your post just before bedtime. The post was even better than the British comedies.

I hope you get a handle on the problem soon or you will be dreaming bugs in the night.

Much love, and sleep tight, xoxocyhunsaker

liz said...

jaw dropped at the ants in the diapers. holy COW that's not a fun day at all. i would have been in tears at that point. Way to be strong! ;-)

emily j said...

Wow, I thought I had a bad day yesterday. That bug thing is so gross, I'm sorry! Maybe today will be better????? I have two puking/diarrhea-ish (is that a word?) kids today so the fun is just beginning.....

Safire said...

Yes, get a exterminator and kill those suckers...die die die!! We get crickets in the summer and I HATE them. They are not as bad as your bugs though. Sorry!

Laura B. said...

Oh Jen...your life should be a sitcom.
I'm not laughing at you...I'm laughing with you!
How much time do you have left in that awful Miami? You should come to Iowa...we don't have bugs.
Oh...email me...I need to pick your brain about something. benandlaura6(at)msn(dot)com

Julie M. said...

Ahh! What a day! Have you seen the previews for the show Motherhood? I can't wait to watch it. I was thinking you could be one of the writers! :) In our last apt we had ants, and I left the diaper bag on the floor. Same thing. Only I didn't go anywhere with it. The husband grabbed a baggy full of chocolate covered donuts out of it, and began to eat them. Only to find them squirming in his mouth! Gross huh? And no, I don't typically have such yummy snacks. Hope you have a better day today!

LuAnn said...

That really sucks. I can't imagine. Poo poo on baby powder. No pun intended. But it isn't so great on gray hair.

Gavin and Shawna said...

We had some interesting bugs in FL...but surprisingly...we really don't get much here. Just hellish sized mosquitos all summer long!
I get the eeby-jeebies from watching things crawl with bugs. YUCK!!!
You print your blogs, right?? you could probably sell them for money and move into a bigger less buggy place=)))))

lindsy said...

I'm exhausted for you just after reading that. good luck and YUCK!

Sarah Starr Alleman Smith said...

I think you could buy yourself a new diaper bag after that. DANG

SuburbiaMom said...

OH, I'm having flashbacks when we lived in Hawaii. Ants in your diaper bag reminded me of when I found them in my, at the time, baby's bed, drinking from a pool of her saliva. I was calling those stupid ants every bad word that I could think of.

Yes, maybe just pay for the exterminator. Ant traps work too--you just have to put them where the kids can't get them (and do it at night when they're not awake). We stuck them outside the window ledges (very hard to do with screens and in apartments). I taped some up high in the corners by the windows and back in the corners of the kitchen countertops, behind something so that Cash can't see them.

Good luck with those ants. Sheesh--you should get some kind of award for what you went through that day!

Kimi said...

We have a problem with cockroaches every now and again. The thing that works the best for us is these black round things with poison in them that have a cover on top. They also have them for ants. They crawl in take the food back to the colony and then all die. The cockroaches die because they poop out the poison and then the other cockroaches eat it. We used the ant ones at our house in Idaho. You can just leave them in the cupboards and on the counters so you don't have to worry about the babies chewing on them.

Andrew also loves baby powder. He covers his body in it after every shower. Our floor is also always covered with a thin layer of baby powder.

Anonymous said...

SICK. Doesn't your apartment complex send out exterminators? I remember the cockroaches in Houston. *shiver* Our countertops were a dark faux-granite and every time I would wipe down the corners there would be bug poop on the washcloth. I get the chills just thinking about it, I feel your pain. And talk about the icing on the cake with having ants in the diapers! Yikes!

Ty and Trista Swartzlander said...

Oops! Sorry Jen. The baby powder wasn't such a good suggestion after all, but it does make for a dang good read. Terminex!!!!

Anonymous said...

I should have said earlier that when you clean out the diaper bag, leave it hanging in the sun from your balcony and let the sun sanitize the inside of the bag. Perhaps even invert the bag. That would either work or melt the bag, depending upon its quality.

Just a thought.

Grammy Heloise (Carolyn)

Melanie said...

Yes get a bug man! It will be money well spent! Wow what a problem!

Shannon said...

Ya Jen that's bad. I feel for you. Oh! to have your mom and sister back, right?