BeetleJuice

There are many great things about living in Florida. Affordable housing which means you can own a pool on the cheap. Great weather year-round (well, summer is debatable). Access to some amazing beaches and if you're like me, I love the latin influence here. Mmm... can you say cuban bread?

However, there is a major drawback to living in Florida, which I've posted about before. BUGS. Of all variety. My newest foe? The beetle.

Growing up in central California, we had some really cool green iridescent beetles in our backyard. I can't think of what they are called, but am sure my father would know. He is a bug aficionado. The beetles I've come across in Florida are not cute. They are down right gross, of the roach variety. So you can imagine my horror at what happened to me yesterday in not one, but two separate beetle run-ins.

I finally got the car seat adapter connected to our jogging stroller and ventured out with Katherine on our first neighborhood walk yesterday morning. Natalie was in preschool and Katherine had only woken up once in the night so it was a good morning. Now that I am finished with pregnancies (my rule is the kids cannot outnumber the parents), I am trying to get fit again. It's been a good year since I've exercised regularly and my body shows it. The challenge is finding the time with two small children. So three mornings a week while Natalie is in preschool, the plan is to walk the neighborhood and work back up to running again when Katherine is big enough to be in the stroller w/out the carseat attached.

So, we are enjoying our first morning walk. Mornings here are getting very pleasant, in the 70s which is perfect. Katherine seems to be enjoying herself and the fresh air, as I am. As we round the corner and start heading up the one "hill" back to our house, I see out of the corner of my eye something blackish fly right down into the stroller. The stroller where my precious two month old daughter is relaxing. I thought it was a leaf and start looking around to make sure when I spy something moving on the baby blanket. Aack!! No, not a leaf, but a brown, roach-like beetle. Double-aack! So I wisk Katherine out of the stroller and while holding her and the blanket in one hand try to get the beetle out of the stroller. Oh, and I'm trying to do this without actually touching the beetle because... I just can't. Apparently I have a beetle phobia. The body of this one is about an inch in length (small by FL standards) and I just cannot flick him out with the car seat straps. As I keep trying the little bugger crawls in between the straps and under the padding of the car seat. There is no way for me to get at him now as I cannot pull the fabric up while holding Katerine in my other arm. So what do I do? I proceed to push down on the fabric where he went as hard as possible. Then cover the area with the blanket and put Katherine back on top. I then proceed the last quarter mile home as fast as possible with visions of the nasty beetle crawling all over my daughters pristine skin.

Yeah, it was a great first outing.

When we got home, I took Katherine out, took the car seat outside, lifted up the fabric and there he is, alive and well. So I let him go and spared his life. That should have brought me some good Karma, no? No. Apparently, all it did was piss him off and get him to round up his big beetle brothers to hunt me down. Because later that night...

After being woken up after only 1.5 hours sleep by aforementioned daughter, I go into the bathroom to find a huge (2 inch?) roach/beetle on the floor. ICK! I'm too tired to go into the kitchen to get paper towels so gather up some tissues, which are totally inadequate and approach the beetle. I'm silently freaking out at this point as I desperately do not want to touch it, and in my hesitation, miss and he runs! I then see him on the cabinet, about 1/2 way up. Perfect, he can scale heights. I hesitate again and he runs again. This time, into the cavern of our pocket bathroom door where I can no longer reach him. The door that is only a few feet from Katherine's bassinet. So at this point, he's still alive, somewhere in the general area where we all sleep.

That should provide some sweet dreams tonight.