The ants go marching...

Ok so part of the hardness of both a c-section, and having a child with food allergies, is the propensity we have as women to blame ourself for everything, especially things regarding our children, and the way that comes into play in cripplingly intense amounts regarding these two particular circumstances.
Well at least its true for me.

I've had 3 years of hard time.
I've put myself in prison.
While there, I am punished for all my atrocities.
Recently my punishments have gotten harsher, because the jury has discovered even more failings that had previously gone by undetected.
I was therefore locked in solitary confinement.
Well... it would be solitary, except they left me in there with one particularly evil guard, who spent all day, and all night, telling me exactly why I was in here. She's very well read, so she can come up with some amazingly descriptive tales about my failings.

But God started bringing in these little ants.

Somehow,
despite being in solitary confinement,
during my days, I mother.
I get breakfast ready. (Breakfast made out of weird non allergen, non breakfast foods.) I let the house get messy. I give baths.  I put to bed.
And THEN I clean up crumbs.

There were these ants.
Getting into my crumbs.
They were so happy.
I was not.

It wasn't even warm out yet. I thought ants were a summer time thing.

I at night my evil guard would take breaks from her food allergy tirades to tell me how, "If you could only keep up with those crumbs, those ants would be gone!" "Other moms must be cleaning up their crumbs. If they weren't every house with children would be infested with ants!" "Clearly, you are a terrible mother if you can't even keep your floor swept. I mean, look, you are now allowing your home to be infested with pests due to your negligence!" Sometimes in a bootcamp scream, sometimes in a snake whisper as she rocked me to sleep.

And during the day I'd repeat them to myself. Even expound on them.
And squash ants.

I told Blake I wanted to sweep and mop behind the fridge and stove, to try and help the situation.

We moved the fridge... not much more than some dust bunnies to free.


After a full day with the girls, we almost didn't get around to the stove.

But once they were in bed, we yanked it out.

It was a tight fit.
As Blake dislodged it, a strange, thinly shattering rain fell behind it.
And we craned to see...



Tooth picks that we never bought,
raining down into an oceanic sea of crumbs,
pointing the way to a fossilized kraft single.

And a battalion of ants.

"Oh my gosh!"
"That's disgusting!"
"Ewww!"
"Woah!"
"That's got to be 15 years old!"
"I know, we never bought those!"
"Sick!"
"Well no wonder there were so many ants!!!"
"Get out some gloves!"







It was pretty quickly in the moment,
God took some scales off my eyes.
As the tooth picks fell down, so did some lies, so did some scales.

My crumbs weren't the issue.

Sometimes we can see our crumbs and think its all our fault.
But there are things in life that we just can't see.
Stuff behind the scenes.
Crumbs behind the stove.

Crumbs that could have never been put there by us...
we were even around yet.

I mean, they are still our crumbs to clean up, if and when we can.

But the guilt,
its not for us.

And really, its not for anyone.
Its not like someone thought, "Hey this is the perfect storage place for my cheese!"
It fell back there by mistake.
Well, even less than a mistake, really.
Gravity just got a hold of something, that someone's hands just weren't expecting.
And we all have been there.
The cheese dropping has long since been atoned for.

And the ants are just part of life.



I've stopped yelling at myself for the crumbs under our high chairs.

Now I just have to work on the "crumbs" under the rest of my circumstances.

By the way, our ants seems to be clearing up now.

And I do think God has the grace to show us which appliances to clean behind,

when we are ready,

even if we didn't dirty them.

And I'm starting to think,

maybe,

if I listen to HIM

instead of my prison guard,

I might just have fun some days

cleaning.

He doesn't yell at me.

He leads me.