Forgive Me for the Things I Did Not Know, and Bugs

So, this week, my husband got the lawn treated, something I should not have allowed as a biomedical mom, but I dropped the ball big time.

This is truly because I have far more balls than hands, and I’m too distracted to juggle properly 🙂

Anyway, I should have done the research on the company and now I’m afraid to, but not content to let well enough alone, I went into the shower on Autism Awareness Day, after spending half the morning puking, and still on shaky tummy, and began to berate myself for all the sh** I didn’t know but did buy, use or ingest while I was pregnant with either of my kids, and all the toxins roundly unleashed on them post-birth, not to mention vaccines.

The biggest offense was pesticides.  So here’s the deal: I grew up in Queens, NYC apartment building, which all swarm with cockaroaches, and the very sight of a bug makes me weak-ass in the knees.  I’ve learned to kill my share of moths (thanks, Poconos) and stink bugs (double thank you, Lehigh Valley), but it gives me the absolute willies every time.  Yes, I know bugs serve a purpose, whether you’re creationist or an evolutionist, blah blah blah.  But they are so DARN disgusting, and, I sh** you not, mice don’t bother me as much, despite finding a petrified one under my fridge back in the day.  (Yea, I can kill those too – with a baseball bat!  But that’s another story…)

Anyway, before leaving the Great White Bug Infested North (aka the Poconos), we had a bee problem, and they got into our siding…and LIVED there, and that’s why one summer we had bees INSIDE OUR HOUSE.  So the only thing worse than a cockaroach IMHO is a damn fast buzzy think that hurts like the dickens when it gets you because you freaked out that the damn buzzy thing would sting you and hurt like the dickens.  Been down that road twice.*

Back then, there was no question – I was a freakin’ Dalek, couldn’t get the exterminators there quick enough!  So, ok, I recall that that was close to before we moved so I drugged my kids when Zoe was like one. Wonderful.

Next, when we came here, we had that fanstastic stink bug issue – they don’t stink, but they do come with a wonderful side of Japanese beetle, both too reminiscent of cockaroaches for my taste.  So, shortly after moving in, we doused the place, and within a day, the Japanese beetles were about 5 inches deep on my stoop.  (I refused to even look out the window, and left Chris to that sorry task.)

Now, I’m not completely stupid, I do remember asking about the kids’ safety and taking word on it that 2 days indoors and no walking on the lawn for a few would suffice.  But, now?  I’m like the most horrible, evil mother monster that ever lived.

Hence the crying in the shower, post stomach-virus.

I do have a zero tolerance for regrets policy, though.  I didn’t know, and I can’t take it back, so there you have it.  I’ve always been raised that bugs are the filthiest creatures in existence, even though I know that’s not really true at all.  I’m smarter, and I have EWG’s Skin Deep database to help me.  But I still fu#!ed** up this one this week.  I should have put this TOP of mind, and done the research.  Would it have made a difference?  I don’t know.  I still can’t find any data, which worries me.  Anyone can slap the label “organic” on a thing and blithely philosophize about helping the planet while doing the very opposite.

Live. Learn.  And spend 95.99% of your time trying to get your kids through life toxin-free.  Sigh…

What about you?  What toxic sink mistakes have kept you up at night?  (It’s not just me right??)

*The first time was my first vacation with Chris in 1995, which we took in Disney World, and some lady with a beehive hairdo carried a bee in her hair into the Haunted Mansion (no, I am NOT making this up), shook it off right when the lights go dark in the preamble part, and landed just north of between my boobs.  Yea.  That was the scariest Haunted Mansion ride ever.

**Wow! There is a lot of profanity in this post and to be frank, I was going to write “fudged” on that last one, but I thought it sounded too Sarah-Paliny.  (That’s a term, now, right?) Anyway, I blame Mike.