A New Member

Now that we're on summer break, my brain has turned to mush and I hardly know how to form a sentence, much less a post. I've been contemplating what to post over the past couple of days.

Would you believe me if I told you that I lost sleep over what to post? No? Well, good, because I haven't lost a wink of sleep over this blog.

But this has caused me a great bit of night terrors:
That would be a 5-inch Tomato Horn Worm that was feasting on our tomato plants earlier this week. (And that's Liam's skinny, 6 year-old hand in the background for comparison.)

Liam, the lover of all things breathing, quickly claimed him as his latest pet, and he is now residing here:
On my kitchen counter. Blek.

I've affectionately nicknamed him ManEater, because with the amount of leaves he's intaking and waste he's outputting, he might as well eat a full-grown man. I can seriously hear him chomping on leaves as I type, and I am a good fifteen feet away from him.

I figure with such sharp teeth and such a large appetite, he could probably eat any one of us human residents at any given moment, so my sleep has been rather disturbed as of late.

Actually, I am not one bit scared of ManEater. But I am scared of his waste, which is larger than any rat droppings I've ever seen. (No, I haven't seen any rats around my house. If I did, y'all would be visiting my grave instead of my blog.)

So, when it comes time to clean out his home, I simply unzip the butterfly net, turn it upside down, and shake, shake, shake...shake, shake, shake...shake his booty.

And he holds on for dear life.

I'm not sure how much longer Maneater will reside in the CupRunnethOver home. If I can put up with his poor table manners and his messy bathroom habits, then he's supposed to turn into some sort of five-spotted moth. (I'm sure Rick will be quick to comment on the exact name of ManEater's future state.)

Anyway, if he turns into something pretty, I'll be sure to keep y'all posted.

If he doesn't eat me first.

And I guess I'll go ahead and label this post as "family", because Liam considers ManEater very much a member of ours.