Ants!

Tonight while Sam was at soccer practice, Maria was going to make muffins (from a boxed mix) for her and Sam to eat for breakfast. Sam hasn't eaten breakfast since he started school (he just hates to eat right after he gets up) and we thought he would eat fresh muffins if we made them - he usually really likes those. I was going to let Maria make them entirely on her own - she only called me if she needed help reaching something - otherwise she was going to do it completely by herself. I was going to work on Sam's birthday picture book while she was baking.

She got started, and a few minutes later she said, "Uh, Mommy, there's ants all over the two bags in here." So I went out into the kitchen and she was right - both bags looked like white with black polka dots because there were so many ants. So I called Ben to see where the ant traps are kept (he was with Sam at soccer practice and somehow taking care of ants has always been his job). Then Maria and I ran to Kroger to get more mix (she really wanted to bake by herself and I really want Sam to eat breakfast tomorrow).

When we got back, Maria made the muffins while I checked out the pantry. The shelf with all of the boxed mixes was covered in ants, so I had to take a few boxes down at a time, go directly outside so the ants didn't get all over the kitchen floor, open the box and see if the food was safe or not. I threw out several boxes, but not everything. If it wasn't sweet the ants didn't touch it - like all the noodles. So some boxes that hadn't been opened were safe. The good news is that the ants didn't migrate to any of the other shelves. So now that part of the pantry is emptied out and there are ant traps there so they can all die. And hopefully this will be the end of it (after we spend days cleaning up dead ants).

But Maria's muffins look and smell delicious - I can't wait to try one!