Late last night

As I was dropping off to sleep I heard this strange, crinkly noise. I was tempted to ignore it because boy was I tired, but I just couldn't. I got out of bed and turned on the light. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I flicked the light off and the crinkly sound started again. I flicked the light on and there they were two huge, mammoth ROACHES! They were up in the corner where we hadn't sheet rocked, yet, and they were trying to get out of a crack and kept retreating whenever they touched the plastic-covered insulation. My heart stopped. There was no way to kill them with a shoe because there was nothing hard behind them, just soft, squishy insulation. I grabbed Georgie out of her crib, heart thumping, panic within reach of my brain. Shut the door to the bedroom and went out into the living room. Tucked my feet up underneath me and felt like crying. How could I sleep? I was too scared to try to kill the roaches.

Now, a little digression. For those of you that don't know, I have major phobia problems when it comes to anything with more than two legs. One of our original purposes for getting a dog was to help me overcome my dog-phobia. Well, it hasn't helped when it comes to bugs. And definitely not when it comes to roaches.

The blood was pounding in my head and I could hardly think. I did remember to breathe slowly and steadily, and I tried to calm down. For my kids, I kept thinking. You've got to do it for the kids. And then, I saw a roach race across the floor in the office and head for the bathroom. So, now the bathroom was off limits for me as well. I felt trapped. I wanted to run out into the streets, screaming my head off, but I knew that wouldn't do. Most people don't understand this type of phobia. I've heard the mantra: they don't bite. Doesn't help. I'm not afraid of the pain. I'm afraid of the bug.

So...I found my can of RAID. It was for flying insects, not roaches, but I thought something is better than nothing. I also found the caulking gun. Those buggers were getting in somehow, and I was determined to plug the hole. When I peeked into the bathroom, I saw one of the roaches. So, I sprayed the whole bathroom, and shut the door.

Okay, so why am I peeking? These things fly. There about 3 inches long, with big, fat, red wings and disgusting slimy stuff all over them. Shudder. I can't even describe it. Even when they're lying dead on the floor, my skin crawls.

So, I opened the door to our bedroom and went over to where I had seen the roaches. They were gone. Of course. I caulked the area that I had seen them at. I caulked more of the wall, and knocked a roach onto the floor. Ran out of the room with my heart racing. Turned back. Went in. The roach was gone. So, I sprayed the whole room with the bug spray and shut the door. Counted to twenty and opened it, and the roach had crawled out from under our bed and was struggling across the floor. A couple more blasts from the can, and I shut the door for the required fifteen minutes. Two down. One to go.

I hunted for that other roach until 3:30am. I never found it. I sat back down on the orange couch. Tucked my feet up under me. Grabbed Georgie and rocked her to sleep. Amazingly the other girls had slept through the whole ruckus. I sat on the couch until 6:00am. When the sun finally started to peek through the curtains, I knew that I would be relatively safe from the roaches since they prefer the dark.

I managed to finally fall asleep though my dreams were plagued with roaches landing on my face and on Georgie, but I did manage to sleep until 9:00. Needless to say, Tanner spent the day building walls, plugging wholes and setting roach traps.

So much for taking the kids to the pool today. I had planned to go swimming with them since I have life jackets for all of the girls I think I can handle all 3 of them in the pool if Tanner sits on the side and studies. He's just there in case of an emergency. But, I figured, tired, slow reflexes are not the ideal guardians for the pool, so the AC is cranked up and as I sit typing this, my feet are up on a stool...just in case...