A Letter to the Wasps - The Insect, Not The Presbyterians

Dear Wasps,

It's been 5 years since you've stayed in our home and I have had enough.  I'm not a reasonable person, especially when it comes to you.  You scare me.  What's more, I think you know you scare me.  I think you guys hideout wherever you are in our home and drink cheap honey until I'm all alone.  You wait until I sit down next to a draft of an essay or a post I want to work on while the girls are asleep.  You'll snicker at me because I get distracted by Hadley's doodles on my essay, or Harper's blue scribbles over a sentence I have been struggling with.  You'll watch with glee as I try and shake the lump that seems to be left in my stomach and chest when my girls aren't clunking toys on the ground, or pitter pattering their feet on the floor.  And just when I'm starting to get used to the empty silence that's filled our home you thump against my window.  You follow it up with a "buzz" which I believe is you laughing even though you know you're going to die.  I think you figure if you're going to get smooshed, you may as well have it done by a crazy lady who is half shrieking, half gasping for breath dancing around the living room swearing while she looks for a shoe to kill you with. 

I'll be darned if you teach me some kind of lesson, though.  Usually just one of you shows up in the afternoons, but that Monday when two of you showed up and one of you was flying; that just about did me in.  I appreciate that you're at least hanging out on our windows so it makes it easy for me to end you.  But flying?  C'mon guys. 

So when I left the house the following day to drop Hadley off at school, I decided I wasn't going back until Jesse came home.  It sounds drastic, I know.  But like I said, I'm not a reasonable person.  I'm also melodramatic.  However, I wasn't expecting to learn some kind of lesson.  I just wanted a break from having the creepies in my house.

Here's what happened, though.  Harper and I spent the morning walking around the Washingtonian Center.

 We went to the park.  We had lunch at the Corner Bakery and drew pictures while we waited for our food.

(I didn't draw that girl holding the flower.)
(I did, however, draw this:)

And while Harper slept in the car, I drove around our neighborhood exploring streets I hadn't noticed before.

Look, wasps, I like my house.  I like how we have it set up.  I like what goes on in it.  I like that despite the fact I sometimes feel inadequate because we don't have a yard for the girls to play in, or that they have to share a bedroom, that they are happy. But I wasn't expecting to dwell on this as I drove around our 'burb eating a raspberry tart and sipping a coffee, and I certainly wasn't expecting to realize that not only do I like our home, but that after four and a half years of being a mother, I am beginning to feel comfortable with my surroundings.  I'm sorry it took wild beasts to show me that. 

I'm also sorry I had to call maintenance and tell them to come and take care of you once and for all. I know you thought they'd never find you, because for almost 5 years they haven't.  But I've been watching, and I narrowed it down, you sneaky sneakersons.  Sure enough, after two hours of looking around and trying to convince me that there were no wasps in my home, maintenance found your nest in our fireplace. 

Don't mess with me, wasps.  I know I come across as meek, or shy or whatever.  I know I cry easily.  And I'm still terrified of you.  It took me almost three weeks to write this post because every time I sit down to finish it I think I can see one of you crawling nearby.  What I'm saying is that it might take me awhile to figure things out, but I'll do it.  And in the end, I usually get my way.

Sincerely,

Callie

PS - We are always watching.