AAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!

I am so incredibly frustrated, I can't scream loudly enough. I haven't been this frustrated in a VERY long time.

No, it's not because my Christmas was terrible. Quite the contrary, I had a lovely time with my family and got lots of goodies. Ace also got LOTS of goodies, with presents still trickling in. He's loving it. We also had AWESOME food.

No, it's not because I spent 2 whole days with The Barbara. It wasn't so bad, honestly. It's all about having someone with whom to commiserate, and although Rob is the perfect person with whom to commiserate, Drew fills in just fine. Also, Ace played quite the good buffer. And speaking of food, The Barbara cooked like crazy for us. I'd make up with her just to eat those fried shrimp again, good heavens.

No, it's not because Ace is still a little discombobulated after the trip. Not napping well and stuff. And saying "discombobulated" has to be the most fun thing ever.

No, it's not because Will.I.Am insists on spelling the word "tasty" as "t-a-s-t-e-y" in the obnoxious yet contagious song "Fergalicious," although that gets on my nerves.

IT'S ANTS. Once every 6 months or so, we have to deal with ants. I'll find a few swarming on a dirty plate that one of us has left on the counter, we're extra clean for a week or so, and they're gone. It's going on a month now that we've been fighting this current swarm and it's making me angrier and angrier by the day. Seriously, I've screamed the most vile things at these ants, making me extraordinarily glad that Ace can't repeat stuff yet.

I noticed a few of them one day, told Drew about them, and we went on the offense. They were gone within a few days... for a day. I opened Ace's cabinet to get his formula and they were everywhere - they had found the bottle of Karo syrup that the doctor recommended for his intermittent pooping and had completely engulfed it. I filled the sink with water and dumped the bottle of syrup in there, and ran everything in the cabinet through the dishwasher. I had to keep everything out of the cabinet for a few days. Freakin' disgusting.

Thought they were gone again. Not. After continuing to kill the stragglers on my counter every single day because they found a single molecule of rogue formula and swarmed it, these geniuses found the cat's food. Pez's stupid self grabs a mouthful of food out of the bowl, drops everything on the floor, then eats off the floor, of course leaving a bunch of crumbs on the floor. So now, natch, there's a little line of ants headed straight toward Pez's pile every morning. And night. Like right now. I clean up the pile a few times a day (stupid cat) and wipe up the area on the floor that might have their chemical trail, but it's just not working.

There was one giant ant pile outside about 3 feet from our house, but Drew killed it, and they're still coming. I've got 5 ant traps in my kitchen, and they're not working. This is stressing me out hard. I really try to keep my kitchen clean. There's nothing more disgusting than seeing ants all over the can of formula in which your child's food resides. (They've never gotten IN the can, but they sure like chewing on the stuff that gets stuck to the side.)

And now I have to mop the kitchen tonight after Drew's done making his gumbo, because I spilled sugar all over the place while filling the sugar canister, like a big dummy.

I'm open to suggestions.