Think again.

I thought I had a system all worked out to keep the bug bites to a minimum. Spray the kids when they wake up. Spray them when they go outside to play. Spray them again after lunch. Spray them after the shower before they go to sleep. Really, that should do it. Well, I don't know what happened. Maybe it was that I didn't spray them enough throughout the day yesterday or the Off Skintastic doesn't work as well as the Off in the orange can. But I know I sprayed them all before they went to bed. Ben woke up with an average of 15 bites on each leg. Xiomara had about 10 on each leg (we won't tell her about the two that are on her back at her waist). Kevin has a couple but I think those are from walking to and from school. I have a couple new ones too. Oh bother! Will they ever decide that we aren't tasty? Maybe it's a new bug that just found us and is all excited about the new "dining establishment" it has found. Either way I'm just a little irritated that my big toe itches! And the poor kids. They seriously look like they were used as pin cushions. The season is getting cooler so hopefully there will be an end for a time. I know bugs are everywhere so I'm not sure why I think this warm place should be any different.

Despite our desire to itch, I made a game with Ben, Marissa and Emily this morning. I taped two pieces of card stock together and drew a path, kind of like Candy Land. I realized, after we had colored all the squares in sequence, that I might have to edit the game or add something to make it a little more fun. For now the kids are fine rolling the die and just going around the board. We decided to finish at the pool so we drew a big pool at the end of the path. I might add some activity cards and consequence cards to spice it up a bit. The activity card would tell them to do some kind of activity: hop three times, etc. The consequence card would tell them to go forward or backward: you told the truth, move forward 3 spaces, etc. We'll see. They might get bored with the whole thing and not want to play at all. It was something to do on a rainy morning while the two younger kids slept. We tried to have fun while we made it so that was good too. (I should probably say that making the game was Kevin's idea.)