bed bugs.

Holidays, fork-mashed with sweet potatoes and breast milk. Part three.

So we've kind of spent the last eleven months staying within a 90 minute radius of our house, since eventually somebody is going to poop or need a nap or a boob, and that 90 minute radius just seems safe. We knew it couldn't last forever.

The week before Christmas we made the trek North to visit Kyle's family. We made the genius maneuver of travelling at night, starting off just before the babies' bedtime so that they would be none the wiser, travelling in sweet peaceful dreams while Kyle and I played twenty questions. Well, while Kyle drove and I slept. We were a bit perplexed to find our strategy successful.

We arrived at Kyle's sister's house, set up the babies' beds, and after a brief nursing, settled them down for the night. Cake. Maybe travelling wouldn't be the end of the world.

Quin has a habit of waking up for a midnight snack three hours too late, and despite our unfamiliar surroundings, he stuck to this routine during our visit. I picked him up and brought him into bed to nurse him back to sleep, begging for just a little cooperation. I was just settling into bed with him when I noticed a flash of light near his foot. Odd. I chalked it up to nothing more than a harmless little hallucination and continued about our business. Another flash, and then another. My mind raced to put the pieces together - a flashing, glowing foot? I settled on the only solution slightly logical: a firefly. Not being one for insects, I threw a hard elbow in Kyle's direction.

"Get up! Get up! Quin has a firefly in the foot of his pajamas and it is biting him! It is flashing and burning his foot. Get up! Get it out! I'm not putting my hand in there, it's going to be crunchy!"

And from Kyle: "???"

"Hurry! It's flashing and biting him!" I ripped open the leg of Quin's pajamas, pulled his foot out, and instructed Kyle once again. "I am not putting my hand in there. It's going to be crunchy!"

I believe he sighed. I believe he rolled his eyes. I suppose the past eleven months have also taught him enough about the level of crazy I can become on little to no sleep. He reached his hand in. "There's nothing in there. You do know it's December, right?"

"Kyle. It was flashing. I saw it. I SAW it. Your fingers are just too fat. Feel again. I don't want to touch that crunchy bug."

Repeat the sigh. Repeat the eye rolling. Repeat the pajama-foot-sweep.

"April. There is no firefly."

Exasperated and contemplating the victorious scorn I would shoot in his direction upon proving my right-ness and accompanying lack of insanity, I shoved my own hand into the pajama-foot. I braced for the crunch.

Nothing.

I swept again. Nothing. My next sweep was frantic. Nothing.

My heart raced. Is this how it ends for me? At Kyle's sister's house, away from home? This is where I will finally lose it? This is where the men in white jackets will come and take me away? This is where the real world and the world of pink elephants and phantom fireflies come to haunt me and then disappear when I run to prove myself?

I put Quin's little foot back into his pajamas. I re-closed the snaps. Spark. Flash.

The messy swirling in my brain stopped. The dust settled. Sunlight and moonbeams shone on reason.

Static. Just static.

"Oh." I tried a sheepish giggle. "I guess it's really dry in here."

Kyle was already asleep. I nudged another elbow in his direction.

"Pssst. It was just static! I'm not crazy! Static!"

"Uh huh. Night."

You really never can be too safe.