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.