Ants

There is an ant nest somewhere around the front of our house. We've had some ant problems inside, but nothing too bad. But they are everywhere outside and it's fairly annoying. So I placed a few ant poison traps in various places outside in the hope that it would decrease the ant population. This isn't something that I gave too much thought to - I just wanted the ants gone.

Then Aiden saw the traps. Sensitive, bug loving Aiden. He asked me what they were and I told him. He got SO upset! Hysterical sobbing, tears streaming down his face, proclamations of love for bugs everywhere, teenage girl type wailing. He shut himself up in his room for a full two hours, crying off and on. He finally emerged with a letter to me, requesting that I remove the traps and leave the ants alive.

This wasn't going to be easy. We really need to reduce the number of ants out there, but I also understand that I have a very sensitive child. I promised him that I would remove the traps from the dirt area. I said nothing about the hidden traps that he hadn't seen. While I'm treading a fine line of lying to my child, I figure that if I remove the traps that were bothering him, he'll put at ease while we are still able to limit how many ants are crawling all over the property. It's probably hard for us adults to see any problem with killing off pests, but I know that Aiden still sees them as living things and the thought of killing them is upsetting to him. It sure made for an interesting afternoon in this house!