The Great Mosquito Massacre of 2009.

Last night was a restless one for the three of us, tucked up together in the same bedroom.
The wookie couldn't sleep, although I hadn't noticed as I did pass out for a couple of hours.
When the munchkin woke up for her midnight milk break, I was sitting in the chair, and could just hear Mozzies. And slapping. The wookie slapping mozzies and mozzies in my ear, that annoying whining sound that means you can't get to sleep.

We turned the light on.

And it was like living in the Amazon.

I thought we'd see one or two mozzies, kill them and get to bed.
Instead, the two of us spent the next half hour or so chasing mosquitos around the room.
I stopped counting at 30. YES THIRTY, and I think we probably killed at least 50.

The munchkin thought it was wonderful fun, the light on in the middle of the night, people talking and standing on the bed and slapping and swearing. We chased mozzies, she chased us.

We ended up covered in lavender oil (for the itching), with the aircon on (to close all windows and possible points of entry), with a mozzie coil burning.

Of course, then the little person couldn't sleep. She cried in her cot. We put her in our bed. She crawled all over us in the dark for half an hour, whinging and wanting to play, getting more and more grumpy and tired.

I moved back to the chair with her, to rock her to sleep. She was almost there when....
bang, an ENORMOUS grasshopper started crawling along my arm. I was holding the baby, feeding her and rocking, and did not have so much as a finger spare to remove the grasshopper.

Light on. Wookie back up out of bed (and slowly seeing possible hours of available sleep before work shrinking away). Grasshopper removed.

Back to the chair, baby asleep.

Back in bed. Baby wakes up, starts whinging and wanting to stand up.

I leave in the knowledge that she will fall asleep moments after I am out of view.

She does.

While the wookie gets her back to sleep in our bed, I stand in the wardrobe/en suite and kill SIX more mosquitoes.

I decide it's safe to go back to bed.

Baby wakes up.

I feed her (again! All the while mumbling about... seriously dude, are you newborn? How much milk do you want?).

She falls asleep.

The wookie falls asleep on my other side.

I lay awake. Smelling lavender and mozzie coils, listening to the unfamiliar noise of the aircon.

Around dawn I pass out.

Four hours later I'm here to tell you all about it.


Today I have to:
* Investigate natural mosquito solutions for our house. We live in the bush. We're surrounded by water. We have very large open plan bedroom. The little buggers are everywhere.
Any suggestions folks?
* Remove the blood splatters from all over our walls and ceilings. Although we did discuss, in delirium, leaving them there as a warning to other blood sucking insects.
* Inspect all the screens in our room for holes
* Have a decent, insect free nap