The Ants Go Marching

On any normal day, the Murphy household wakes up pretty early, but this morning I was woken up by a crying child at 2:56 a.m. Lily was sitting up in my bed crying and telling me that there were ants crawling in the bed and on her. I turned on the lights and got her out of the bed to show her that there wasn't anything there. I told her she was just probably dreaming and that she should go back to sleep. Sounded pretty easy, but I wasn't that lucky. She refused to put the covers back on and kept telling me that they were crawling all over her feet and legs. The only thing I could suggest was that she put socks on. That seemed to help and she calmed down to go to sleep. Of course this bright idea did not come until an hour and a half later.

Was this just simple paranoia? Unfortunately not. Lily had every reason to be paranoid that there were ants on her because the poor thing was bitten by fire ants when we were at the park on Tuesday.

Now that my mind was a little more clear, I tried to discuss the difference between the ants that bit her feet and black ants with the hope that we could both sleep peacefully.

"Lily sweetie, the ants that bit you at the park are called Fire ants and they bite when people step on their ant hills. It's their way of protecting themselves. The black ants that you see everywhere don't bite like the red ones do."

"You mean they give hugs?"

"Well, no they don't give hugs, but they aren't as mean as the red ones."

"Oh, the black ones are sweet."

If thinking that the black ones are sweet makes her feel better, so be it. Whatever makes her and I sleep better at night is fine by me.