The Ants Go Marching...

It all started with a seemingly innocent milk-filled sippy cup on Kayli's bedside table. We had a nice winter routine going with bath, jammies, teethbrushing, followed by milk in a sippy cup while bedtime stories were read. Kayli would insist that the cup remain on the bedside table throughout the night, (you know, in case of a thirst emergency) She would nod off nicely and look like an angel as she slept, that is, until her usual twice-a-night visit to check on me to make sure I was still in my bed and now needed to carry her back to her bed while she hugged me and gave me "re-assuring" pats on the back and another "luv you too" as she quickly nodded off to dreamland again. Well, I knew that Spring had officially arrived when I went into Kayli's room to wake her in the morning and saw the small army of ants that had ambushed the sippy cup overnight! Generally, Kayli is slow to wake up, as she stretches, rubs her eyes, and reaches for me to pick her up. Well, today she sprang into action after I said "Kayli, look at the ants that came to drink your milk." She said "What?" and she was out of bed in a flash, ready to snatch up that cup and do what was necessary to "save her milk!" She glanced at me trying to "sweep up" the little pests with a wet washcloth and ran to get her own washcloth. She stood there looking at the ants, shaking her head in disgust, and muttering "This nooot good!"
It also just so happened that I had previously told Kayli if she didn't brush her teeth, she would end up with bugs in them like we saw on the Grinch movie. I reminded her of this on a sporadic basis, when she balked about brushing. When it came time for Kayli to go to bed later that night, I was telling her that most of the ants were gone, and if she sees one, she should just smash it. She stood there looking up at me with puzzlement, and pointing to her teeth she said "Bugs come Tayli's teeth." Ok, this kid's really thinking. And now that I'm standing here, with the night lamp on, I'm noticing more than a few stray ants, so I tell her that ants don't like teeth and that after finding that good milk to drink, now they're looking for more, so we'll just sleep in my room tonight and then when the ants find out that we're not leaving our sippy cups out anymore, they'll go back to their home. Sheesh, I'm exhausted from all this creative thinking... And... the saga continues as I baited those ants for a week until they decided to abandon Kayli's bedroom in lieu of a place more reliably stocked with sticky spills and crumbs, our kitchen!