August 9
We're once more close to the beach, and so the sand in the bed is still an issue. I don't understand, though, where it all comes from. We sweep the floor all the time, we wipe our feet, we don't wear shoes in the trailer, we shake our clothes and towels out before we bring them inside, I dust off and vacuum the bed before we climb into it... and yet, in the middle of the night, I still wake up to the feeling of grittiness under me! I just don't get it. Is the sand just hiding somewhere until I get comfortable?
But anyway, poor little Frodo ran afoul of a nest of fire ants today! He got bit a few times on his legs and feet, and how he cried! I felt so bad for him. And what could I do, but put calamine lotion on the bites and give him an ice cream sandwich and cuddle him? We both got sticky from the ice cream, but that didn't matter!
There are more fire ants here than there are further north, unsurprisingly (and also more sand burrs); and it was probably because of that that Gimli decided that from now on he is going to "make friends with" as many frogs and toads as possible. And so Fíli has named him "The Frog Whisperer"! I had to remind Gimli, of course, that it's a bad idea to bring his frog and toad friends into the trailer, since Fíli and Kíli told us that Rolly had eaten a frog just this spring, and had gotten quite sick because of it.
And, well, I suppose in response to Gimli's new "title", Kíli has declared himself to be "The Moth King" – because, for some reason, moths tend to gather around his bed light while he is reading at night. He long ago gave up trying to chase them away, and now he just lets them do whatever they want back there. Sometimes he will even let a particularly large moth crawl onto his palm, then he'll bring it out to show the rest of us. Of course, Gimli threatened the most recent of Kíli's moth buddies with a toad.
In a bored moment yesterday, I started messing with the radio/tape deck, and I came across a classic country music station. I left it playing for a bit, and when the song "On The Road Again" by Willie Nelson came on, Fili and Kili went absolutely giddy! They even felt the need to look up the lyrics, then they "serenaded" the rest of us! Frodo, being the little mockingbird that he is, started singing it, as well; and he's barely stopped since. And though I am getting a little tired of the song at this point, there is something quite adorable about a preschooler trying to sing the right words to anything.