Ha ha ha bless your soul / You really think you're in control.

The ant invasion continues. This time they're coming from inside the opposite wall. I wanted to blow up the house, but G decided to go underneath the house to see if he could find the nest, with no luck. They turn their little black noses up at our ant baits and seem undeterred by the fact that we kill masses of them every few hours. We can't find the nest because it seems to be inside the walls.

I did some more research, again, on non-toxic pest controls, and found a product called Terro. We bought a box of the liquid stuff at the hardware store and now have it strategically placed around the kitchen. The box says it will kill "Argentine ants, Ghost ants, Cornfield ants, Pavement ants, Acrobat ants (?), White footed ants, Little black ants, Odorous house ants, Crazy ants, Big headed ants, and other sweet eating ants. " The poison is supposed to work slowly enough that the ants have time to bring the food back to their colony and kill all their homies.

It doesn't say, however, that it will kill Stupid ants. Which is unfortunate. Because we have Stupid ants. They liked the Terro very much, and swarms surrounded each drop of the liquid like some sort of "Hands Around the Terro" ceremony and each ant gorged himself until he died. Right there at the edge of the Terro lake. Which means the rest of the ants have to remove the happy little ant corpses in order to reach the golden nectar themselves. I guess I should be glad they're stupid, though, because they don't seem deterred by the fact that their buddies are all dying after eating the stuff. "Hey, Dude, just means more for me! Heh heh."

2. Right now, I have 6 boys under the age of 8 in my playroom. Nothing good is going to come of this, but at least Ben is sleeping so whatever happens won't involve him. Oh dear. Now I hear them saying they're playing Doctor. Perhaps I should check on them.

Ah, "Doctor" involves one child jumping on a blue blanket, pretending he's drowning, and the other two pretending to "reel" him in with a fishing pole. Kids! Isn't it cute how they reenact everything about the doctor's office?

3. Boys are a complete mystery to me. A. and his friend W. were playing some sort of game earlier where one says to the other, "I killed you!"

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"No you didn't 'cause I have super powers."

"Yes I did 'cause I have really super powers."

and so on and so on. No matter what super powers A. came up with, he couldn't kill W. It was starting to annoy me, but what am I going to do? "C'mon A., if he won't let you kill him, maybe you don't want to play with him."

Give me a tea party problem and I can solve it. Barbies not getting along? I'm your gal. But I'm helpless in the face of 4-year-old boys.

The whole "killing" thing bothers me anyway. We're super-pacifists and would prefer they play "hunger strike" or "peaceful protest." At first we tried saying "We don't play guns in this house." That worked until our 8-year-old neighbor returned from a trip to D.C. with a Union soldier uniform and a Civil War addiction, and began recruiting all the neighborhood kids to reenact the Civil War on his front lawn. It was actually pretty funny, because W. got to hold the flag (always hold it up off the ground! Even if you die!) and A. got to beat on the drum hanging around his neck. The two of them next to Drew, the coordinator, Civil War expert, and owner of a genuine toy bayonet, were a pretty funny tableau.

A. and W. were the youngest (except for Ben who, at 16 months, was put in charge of ammunition which involved him holding the stuffed animals they used as cannonballs) and they kept killing each other even though they were supposed to both be Union. Poor Drew, the neighbor, choreographer, and Commander in Chief of the Union forces, was very patient with them and with the Confederacy, who were two rather hyper little boys from down the street.

Anyway, when I'm playing trains with A., I try to avoid playing out the crashes and instead make all his engines kiss each other, but he's still turning into a little boy who likes rough stuff.

He and W. are now making guns with their tinkertoys.

"Mine is a pellet gun and yours is a BB gun and pellets beat BBs," (this from W. who goes hunting with his dad and knows from guns).

W. is super-competitive and I can't keep my mouth shut.

Me: "Why can't you have the same kind of guns? Why does one always have to beat the other?" Perhaps missing the bigger question regarding why they have to have guns at all, but whatever.

W: "OK, we both have pellet guns, but mine is stronger."

Me: "Why does one have to be stronger? Why can't you have the same kind?" They both walk away quickly. I am clearly not trusted to comment on the game.

W: "Mine is a pellet gun 2000."

A: "Well, mine is a pellet gun 2000 and 3 and 6!"

W: "Mine is a 2000 one million and a thousand!

Aaargh. I have a feeling I've got many more years of this.