Featuring AGGRESSIVE from "The Passive-Aggressive Mother"

It's been a weird day.  Both of my boys took naps THIS MORNING, at the SAME TIME.  That is so rare.  So I wasted a ton of time trying to figure out something really productive I could do and settled on 1) making cookies & 2) sweep and mop the floors.  Then this afternoon we got a short but giant rain storm.  It was pouring buckets for just 10-20 minutes and then it cleared right up.  I had to run a couple of errands but we waited until the rain had died down.  We drove past a group of kids tubing down the gutter.  No joke!  I wish I had my camera.  The gutter was WAY full and it was out into the street almost 10 feet and the kids were just playing with their inner tubes.  I tried to get out there and live it up like a kid, but Marshall said he'd rather stay inside than go jump in puddles.  Darn.  I guess I'll convince him next time.  You'd think this would make for a heavenly day.  I thought so too.  But the last couple hours have been a jumble of weird emotions that only find their way out every once in a while.

Well, we got home and I decided we better check out the damages to my humble garden that consists of spaghetti squash, serrano peppers and tomatoes.  I have three pepper plants, but only one has produced any fruit and its been tiny.  Well, I noticed that the producing plant looked like the rain knocked all of the leaves off and then I saw them.

These three giant caterpillars ate all the leaves off my ONLY PRODUCING PLANT!  My voice was on the verge of screaming as I was calling them "stupid bugs" and telling them they are not welcome in my garden.  Apparently my suffering garden broke this camel's back.  I was so furious.  I exclaimed, "I'm gonna go inside and get my camera so I can take a picture of the little jerks!"  Marshall thought they were really interesting creatures but also didn't like that they had eaten the plants we've worked so hard on.  

Then I looked over to my squash and saw the critters I'd been suspecting for a couple weeks now...

SQUASH BUGS!

They're kinda hard to see, but a small fraction of them were clustered on that dead leaf.  I started cutting off all the leaves they were camping out on (to avoid the "torrential flooding" of the garden) and set them on the cement.  Then I realized I didn't want to squash all the bugs with my shoes, so I grabbed a shovel and let them have it.  Soon I can hear my dear oldest child,
"We are killing all these freakin' little jerks!"
  And then I turn around to find Tyler behind me with his own little shovel smashing what's left of all the little garden eaters.  

So here I sit, confessing my wrong doings.  I taught my son those naughty little words.  And I'm sorry.  Especially if he ever utters them in your presence.