Jamison's latest thing is doing his 'upside-down boy' on the couch. (Ignore our attempts to spot clean his ground-in cookies, please.) At the end of this video he shares how much he loves everyone in the family. We are still working on his responses.
A few nights ago I went downstairs to do our nightly check for scorpions in the boys' room. When I walked in my heart dropped and I had one of those moments...like when you turn around in the store and your kids are nowhere to be seen. Both beds were empty. I checked the bathroom, their closet, the toy room, all over. I knew they had gone downstairs earlier that night and I was really close to panicking. My first thought was that they had been kidnapped (ok, call me paranoid after the threats to my husband's office) but at about that exact point I noticed 2 boxes in their bedroom they had been playing in all day. I lifted one of flaps and immediately ran (actually, more like waddled) upstairs to grab the camera:
Braedon sort of sat straight up after I opened his box. He was still asleep though, even as I pushed/pulled him into his bed. Neither of them remembered me getting them into bed. I was so relieved they were safe at home....and I didn't find a single scorpion when I finished searching their room...even better.
Disclaimer: Kris and I like to be independent and have learned we don't like to depend on others and do so only when we have to, this includes home repairs. We have no choice here in Mexico, we are forced to depend on the Embassy for anything to do with housing and cannot fix things ourselves unless we 1. Want to spend our own money on it (not that big of a deal for our family's comfort) 2. Don't mind being held accountable and blamed for any more damage we find or run across during our own repairs. (a big deal since any minor repair seems to turn into a nightmare with this house)
As I write this we have no water. The cistern, and water pumps from the water tanks on the roof don't work. The City has turned down the water for rationing and we have these ginormous tanks full for emergencies and rationing but we should have known the pumps didn't work...stupid us for thinking that was part of the GSO pre-inspection for the home. So now we are looking at a week without water unless the City turns the water back on early. Dang it! We do have plenty of drinking water though and Kris can climb to the roof and get water in buckets for the toilets and such....lucky him.
Have you ever seen this commercial? We think this guy works for the GSO here in Mexico (GSO is the section where the embassy housing office is, also stands for the functionally retarded morons who work there, Isaiah Parnell is the chief moron-in-charge)
On Wednesday we had another home experience brought to us compliments of GSO:
How to fix a cracked toilet tank according to GSO:
No need to replace the 1970s era toilet (everyone knows how porcelain just gets 'stronger' over the years right?) just use silicone to fill the crack. Leave the new tenants unaware at your moronic attempt at a repair. Sit back and enjoy the excitement when the rest of the tank cracks causing water to fill the master bathroom, master closet and master bedroom. Thank goodness you have to step up a few steps from the master bedroom otherwise the water would have found its way through the rest of the house.
The original crack filled with silicone:
And the new crack expanding from the old one (I don't think silicone works on a tank like nail polish does on a run in your pantyhose):
I would have taken pictures of the water but to be honest I started crying the second Weston ran in telling me "MOM! There is WATER EVERYWHERE!"(I've had enough of this stupid house) I then slipped on the marble floor while trying to battle the water and rescue some of our furniture (HELLO! Solid mahogany is freaking heavy when you can't even lift a full laundry basket!).
Landing in all that water was VERY COLD not to mention pretty traumatic when all that weight driven inertia culminated on my tailbone and head. I couldn't move and thankfully Kris got home soon after so he could help me get up because I was about as mobile as a beached whale. I think everything is ok; baby is still kicking, arse is pretty bruised.
I did think to snap some pictures of the tank once it was all over just so Kris and I could laugh about this someday. I also was sure to take pictures of the water damaged floor so GSO couldn't stick us with a bill when we left. CYA if you know what I mean. If you don't know what CYA means...google it, and no, it's not Canadian Yachting Association.
This follows the toilet in the boy's bathroom (a nice 1970's royal blue) cracking at the end of January, flooding their bathroom (which has a lip enclosing the area saving us from a flooded bedroom). GSO still hasn't fixed their toilet because they are fighting with the owner of the home over who is going to pay for it. So I have to get after the boys for using the shower as a urinal in the middle of the night...poor boys, who can blame them since walking to the other bathroom means going through scorpion territory. It was a loosing battle so now we keep the lights on so scorpions aren't an excuse...but it's still a long walk for half-asleep boys and the shower is still closer.
Oh, this ALSO follows a water leak in our dining room and ceiling of the boys' bedroom that is still not taken care of either. The GSO informed me "there was no leak, I must have just spilled some water". I'M NOT FREAKING KIDDING YOU, they actually told me I must have spilled some water!!! Ricardo Tejeda (one of the supervisors) literally stood in my dining room and told me I was "a silly woman" for thinking there were water pipes behind the wall and "look, all of the bricks are dry!" When Kris got home he made the hole bigger and found rusty wire and....WET BRICKS AND CONCRETE! Kris yelled at GSO and I believe his exact words were "open up the damn wall and fix the problem!"
When they finally opened up the wall, this is what they found. Be sure to have the volume up so you can enjoy the "babbling brook" effect:
You send the kids out with blacklights to hunt for scorpions right? Well, doesn't everyone do this?
The kids are only allowed to look for them but if they find one they have to yell for Kris or I to catch it.
Scorpions can't see ultraviolet light (like the wavelength you'd find in a blacklight) so they don't scatter like they would under a flashlight but the coolest thing is they glow under blacklights! Their exoskeleton contains a fluorescent protein (called beta-Carboline) located in the hyaline (thin film in the outermost layer or cuticle).
A newly molted scorpion won't fluoresce but once their exoskeleton has time to harden it will. The science behind this is pretty interesting because it involves the oxidation of proteins that link forming a network which is part of the hardening process. This same phenomenon has helped scientist understand why cataracts form in people's eyes (also a result of proteins that have oxidized or aged)...WOW!!!
Even fossils of scorpions still have this hyaline layer that continues to glow under blacklight! Can I hear another WOW?!?! (Be sure to remember me when you are asked about this on Jeopardy)
The two smallest ones (I'm guessing they are 'baby' scorpions as opposed to full grown separate species) are two we found in our drinking glasses so now we make sure to turn them upside down when we put them away.
The run down from left to right of the larger ones: Far left was found in Kris' and my room. Next was downstairs in the boys' bathroom The remaining 3 (not the little ones) were found outside by the boys during their hunts. There is one with a white coating on it, I'm curious if this one was about to molt but it also looks like paint...I don't know. (The furthest on the right was the one they found tonight.)
Judging from the pincers, I don't think these are too venomous but I haven't had any of them identified to be sure. Supposedly, the smaller or thinner the pincers the more toxic their venom. I'm not about to test the theory so we treat them all as dangerous. Even the lesser venomous ones still hurt like nothing else from what I understand; a hot searing poker through the skin has been the comparison.
Unfortunately (but fortunately) our cats also love to hunt and play with the ones they are able to catch in the house but by the time they are done with them they aren't worth saving for our insect collection. Good Kitties! They haven't been stung from what I can tell since they haven't learned to stay away from them yet.
These scorpions are ones we have caught and haven't had a chance to put in vials yet because I still can't find my box of empty vials! They now sit on the windowsill in the kitchen in an empty peanut butter jar full of rubbing alcohol and we just add to the collection as we find them. (Yes FOX, I do have your name on a few of these!) We have several more, already in vials, we found in the boys' toy box and bedroom as well as another larger one the boys found outside. I didn't feel like fishing them out of the vials for pictures...sorry. It would have made for an impressive group shot! Maybe next time.
Oh, and in case you are wondering, having the house fumigated won't do anything. Our house is so full of cracks and crevices along windows that don't close properly, doors that aren't flush and a number of other buggy entryways, so it's a complete waste of time. Scorpions follow their food source and unfortunately this stupid house is completely open to them. We've done what we could to seal cracks but it's one of those things we've given up on and accept that it is a fact of life while living here.
The color they fluoresce is actually a very nice clear teal but on my computer screen it looks more blue.
