A Bug's Life

Kennedy and Kohen discovered a couple of ants down by the garage door. This was big. Big for Kennedy as she went all Code Red and demanded permission to call her Dad and apprise him of this serious situation. Big for Kohen because he sat right down and got a little sugar ant to crawl up onto his hand. Classic. I got distracted by Aly and just a few minutes later Kennedy and Kohen are racing up the stairs to show me what they had put in their new bug house.

For some reason I didn't make the connection at first between the ants downstairs and the bug they had 'just' caught and put in the house. I saw the grass and I was nervously looking for the huge black spider I was sure Kohen had gingerly picked up and put in there. Then I saw it. It's there in the above picture, south of the grass, a little black speck- my children's first successful bug catch ever. They were so proud. As they chattered away to me I was trying to get a good shot of the ant and before I knew what he was up to, that little sugar ant walked right on out of the mesh cage.

I showed the kids their little ant was making a clean getaway and the below pictures were their sincere reactions. Kennedy was like, 'Hay-ee!' and Kohen was all, 'Didn't he see the grass we got for him?'.... They had never conceived that their little ant could or would just walk on out of the house/prison they had so feverishly/lovingly prepared for it.

At dinner they were telling Nathan all about their ant misadventures and at one point Kennedy says, "Kohen likes to pound with his hand....He just pounded that ant really hard with his hand....really hard...........He really likes ants." I sense some of the hilarity of that moment might be lost in translation somewhere between our kitchen table and the Bloggersphere but trust me, the way she said it, all serious, it had Nathan and I rollin'. I don't think I will ever look at a sugar ant the same way again.