Sagey's elephant backpack from Skip Hop arrived at our doorstep today. My boy was overjoyed and started filling his very own backpack with his favorite book ("The Happy Lion") and his "lali" (lion). His sisters didn't waste much time gathering toy cars for their brother to take along on our trip next week. Saffron's had the owl backpack for a while now and Cinnamon has her Penguin backpack - both from Skip Hop. Both are filled with who knows what. Last week it was a lantern and some books. Today it was a game of some kind. We'll have to check before we leave.
On another note...I was once again confronted with our resident cockroach. The one who's been living somewhere in our bathroom. The one who comes out late at night when he most likely senses that I need to use the bathroom. The one large Texas-sized cockroach, the size of which was unimaginable back in California, which makes me ever so vigilant as I look around to see if he's lurking from underneath a towel or other piece of clothing lying on the floor.
I'm taken back to the time we moved to Austin. The apartment was the most beautiful one I've ever lived in. It's also the one where Stefan and I got married. By the pool. It was the apartment where I first discovered Palmetto bugs - also know as giant cockroaches. Ones that fly. Double gross. It just so happened that I noticed it when my soon-to-be husband was out of town on a business trip. Lucky me. I managed to corner one in the second bathroom and called the maintenance people to get rid of them. When I returned home from work that day, a note was left saying that they "got rid of one bug". I think they lied because I saw it again. I think it was the following day although I'm not sure at this point since that was seven years ago. One of those unpleasant memories of having moved to Austin.
My oldest daughter, Saffron, came into the bathroom after hearing me repeatedly smash the diaper wipe box to finally rid our resident. Unsuccessful. I despise cockroaches. She loves bugs, specifying tonight that "I like hopgrassers". It took me a few seconds to register that she meant "grasshopper". I laughed. She took a large plastic cup and proceeded to look for the roach. No luck. I'm not sure which I loathe more: the chirping cricket that woke us up last week as he chirped so surprisingly loudly from our bathroom or the "why-do-you-have-to-show-up-when-my-husband-is-out-of-town" cockroach that will not leave us alone. Actually, I'm sure it's the Texas roach.