My eldest isn’t really a huge fan of Disney Pixar’s Cars movie — she’s more of a Disney Princess kind of girl.

Be that as it may, a few weeks ago I found her happily doodling Cars characters.

Why? Because her little brother absolutely adores all things Cars and a few weeks ago, he was sick.

So she pulled out her crayon box, perched herself next to him on the couch and spent a couple of hours creating crayon masterpieces of his every whim.

The one above is of Lightning McQueen.

Next we have Lightning McQueen being hauled by Mac…

And then Miss Sally…

And Chick Hicks…

And finally we have, Sheriff.

You know those days when none of the laundry is done, the house is a wreck, the kids are bickering and you’re second guessing your parenting qualifications?

Moments like this totally make up for them!

(And I think it’s pretty cute that her cars tend to look suspiciously like turtles…)

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Every year I ask myself the same question…

Is it worth it? All the bobby pins, pink tights, hairspray, and mini-van shuttling…

And then she points her magical little toes and I have my answer…

Yes, most definitely.

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So I told her that she could add the sprinkles to her and her brother’s cupcakes…

Can you guess which one is hers?

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For weeks, we’ve had a harmless looking little brown bag sitting on top of our refrigerator. Weeks and weeks of nothing (to my mind happily), absolutely nothing happening.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me a praying mantis as much as the next guy.

So long as they are out in the backyard hidden from my view and busily stalking all the nasty plant-eating garden vermin they can find out there.

But there is just something about the mantis’ features and disposition that sort of creeps me out.

You know, just a teensy bit.

So lets just not talk about the one that scared me witless by brazenly flinging his hooked little mits at me while I was watering plants on the deck ten years ago. I still have nightmares, OK?

I sort of forgot all of that though, when a certain little winsome 6-year-old pleaded for one of the praying mantis egg cases that were sitting so innocuously in a tidy ceramic bowl at the garden store check-out.

I didn’t remember the vicious praying mantis deck attack of ‘99 at that particular moment. Instead, I got lost in a little girl’s soulful deep-brown eyes. I fell head-first for her well planned pitch extolling the virtues of praying mantises and what a grand “ebby-cayshunal obber-tubity” it would be to watch them hatch.

I caved.

But it would be OK, wouldn’t it? They’d be outside, right? No trouble at all! Just like the ladybugs…

Only creepier. Much creepier.

WHAT WAS I THINKING???!!!???

Every morning I cringed and squinted as I was prodded into peeking into the little brown bag by a bouncing 6-year-old, “Have they hatched yet, Mommy? Are there enny baby prayin’ mantises in there yet?”

And every morning I breathed a celebratory sigh of relief to find the papery little egg case still sitting in the bottom of the bag. Silent as a tomb.

Maybe it would be OK, maybe the things wouldn’t hatch! They were supposed to hatch in two weeks and as two weeks stretched into four, I breathed a teensy sigh of relief. Ours was a dud. Oh, happy day! I told myself with a smile that I would throw it out the next day and then break the news.

But last night, I thought I heard something…

A faint little scritch, scritch, scritch…

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as the Poe-esque scritching continued. It was coming from the top of the refrigerator…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCKKKKKKKKKK!!! Two hundred little beady-eyed heads turned in unison to peer at me as I peeked into the bag!

I promptly clipped the bag back shut, added two more binder clips (you know, just in case they had evil buggy super-powers or something) and then stuffed the whole scritchy little bag of them out into the garage until their brown-eyed benefactress could deal with them in the morning.

And deal with them she did. With giggles and much clapping of hands and shouts of, “Mommy! Loooooook!! Aren’t they so very, very cuuuuuuute?”

Um… er… well, sort of… but not so close, OK?

But she wouldn’t be deterred. She insisted on me admiring the “adorable” little vermin up close. And they weren’t quite so atrocious as I remembered.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call them cute, but they are undeniably interesting little critters.

You know, from a distance…

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Fly Away Home…

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