Every year since we moved to Colorado, September has taken me by surprise. Summer gives way to fall, and with the cooler weather come wasps.
They congregate on the sunny southern exposure of our house, squirm through cracks in our old, rattling windows, and buzz angrily behind the pulled blinds, scaring the daylights out of me.
Our first year, I wasn't expecting to find wasps inside. My oldest child, then 3, was lifting up the blinds in the family room and letting them slam down -- I'd told her not to do that -- when she was stung.
We dashed upstairs and I called my husband at work.
"There's a wasp in the family room! It stung Tacy! Come home and kill it!"
And he did. But the next time, he said, I'd be on my own.
Since then, I've killed no fewer than a dozen wasps. The vacuum cleaner extension is my weapon of choice -- remarkably effective, and it puts distance between my prey and me. I'm still scared, of course. But
I'm the mom. Like with so many other things, it's my job now.
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