Don't Leave Home Without It!

Yesterday we ordered pizza for dinner. Chris got home with it and Jacob and I were playing outside, enjoying the gorgeous day God gave us. As Chris came up the walk with pizza in hand a brilliant idea hit me; let's go on a picnic! Chris was for it, so we quickly packed up some drinks, a blanket, and a few toys and headed over to Masterson Station Park (literally 6 minutes from our house...if that). We pulled up, found a nice shaded grassy area, ate our Papa John's pizza, and let Jacob run free....while swatting at mosquitoes and ants. It amazes me at this age. Such terror and fright out of our child when we drop him off at church nursery, a nice contained, fun environment that is the same every week. Terrified. Hates it. Then we take him out to the park, somewhere he has never been before, and set him free. He ran, and ran, and ran, and ran..... Well, you get the picture. At one point Chris and I wondered to each other if he would ever look back to see how far from us he had gotten. Nope. He never did. I guess he just trusted that we would be there.

It was the perfect night for a picnic over pizza. We stretched on the blanket, played ball, dug in the dirt, and did all those super cool boy things that little boys like to do. Then we decided to get ice cream to top it all off. There is a new place, Bruster's, that serves a free kiddie cone. Nobody does the free kiddie cone anymore and since I am such a huge fan of ice cream, I am not always too enthusiastic about sharing MY cone with a slobbery toddler. This was perfect. A dream. Chris got some sort of peanut buttery heaven, I got a gooey mound of chocolate raspberry truffle, and Jacob got his very own FREE kiddie cone, sprinkles and all.

We happily set up camp on the trunk of the car and dug in. Then the unwanted guests arrived. Mosquitoes. Lots of 'em. I knew I was swatting at several, but I didn't' realize just how many until my shower this morning. I was so appalled by the number of bites that I counted them. At least seventeen bites (yes, seventeen) bites on my legs alone!!! I've only found three on Jacob so far, but I am sure there are more.

So the moral of this story is....picnics are nice, ice cream is wonderful, but they can all be much more enjoyable with bug spray! We certainly will not go on any additional impromptu picnics or ice cream outings without it!

We packed up and headed out.