Canadutch
Random photo from some smarter people than us.
This is what I see for my future. A world where I am not even 40 yet and am already sleeping in twin beds. It’s 4:51am as I write this and I’ve already been awake for an hour. I am at the end of my rope. I don’t even remember the last time I had a full night’s sleep and I am really starting to feel it.
I hate mosquitoes. I hate them to the ends of the earth and back, but they love me.
This year we’ve tried to combat the problem by getting a mosquito net for over the bed and an automatic citronella spray that plugs in next to the bed. Does this stop the little bastards from getting in? – NO! I wouldn’t be writing this if it did.
Do you know what doesn’t help? Having a husband that flip flops around like a fish all night and pulls the net arse ways and crooked, creating gaps galore for the mosquitoes to enter through. Not. Helping!!!
*sigh* I love my husband so much but at 4:30am, sitting alone in my living room scratching the giant mosquito bite on my cheek… there is nothing I hate more on earth than sharing a bed with him. Here’s how it went for me this morning (and numerous other mornings so far this spring):
I’m still mostly asleep but notice an itch on my back, in a spot I know no amount of twisting is going to allow me to reach. I slowly roll onto my back, trying not to move around so much that I wake myself up fully. I peek at the clock, it’s 3:48am.
I settle on my back with the blankets up to my neck, and notice an itch on the side of my hand, reminding myself if I scratch it, it will get worse and wake me up. My cheek itches like a bitch too.
It’s 3:50am.
Horseback riding through a field…
I’m feeling myself starting to wake up so I desperately try to think about anything else that will get me dreamy and not thinking about my body itching.
It’s 3:55am. It’s not working.
Sleep dammit… peaceful thoughts. Aaah isn’t this bed soft… yes, so tired. Sleeeep.
I’m just starting to manage to drift off again and *NUDGE – SHAKE – BLANKET YANK*! My husband is getting himself comfortable.
It’s 4:01am.
Even breaths, breath in and long breaths out. Relax. Sleep.
I realize I’m a little cold, because my husband had just pulled the top blanket off of me. I keep my eyes closed while feeling around trying to sort them out again. For some reason I figure if I do it without opening my eyes, I won’t wake up. I get the blankets sorted and resume my mummy position under the blankets. He feels it of course and flips himself over onto his side, landing hard and yanking the blankets back in the process.
It’s 4:08am.
I know they are out there and now that my cheek is itching I know they aren’t above munching on my face. I can’t breathe warm air, I am claustrophobic. How do I save my face and still breathe at the same time. Just keep still and pretend it isn’t happening.
The slight panic is waking me up a little more. It’s 4:15am. I can feel my husband moving his legs around.
Edward and Bella… love, romance, intrigue. I wonder how many mosquitoes have gotten in. I should get up and kill them. Wait, no, if I do that I’ll totally be awake. Jacob, Alice, mind reading…
I try to force the dreamy again by thinking of something other than mosquitoes attacking my cheeks and eyelids. It starts to work, I’m drifting off into the magical land of Twilight when *WHAM* – I’ve been ass slammed!
It’s not as dirty as it sounds, it’s when my husband lifts himself up, flips over to his other side while assuming a semi fetal position. When he does this facing away from me, he always shoves his arse way over onto my side and literally … BUTT butts me.
“FOR FUCK SAKE, XANDER!”
I huff, turn on the light and get on my knees. That’s when I see that my husband, in all his tossing and turning, flipping and flopping, has managed to pull the mosquito net all up over himself. I look up and see five mosquitoes perched bloated and happy on the inside of the net. I’m sure one of them smirked at me.
I start clapping wildly trying to kill them. Smushing one and getting blood all over the net, while missing the rest because I’m still sleepy and uncoordinated.
“Unnnggghhh … whaurghh??” I look over and see my husband plucking one of his earplugs from his ear and squinting at me. I guess that means “WTF are you DOING?!”.
“Goddamn mosquitoes. Can’t keep still… twin beds…” *CLAP* “Flipping… tossing… blankets…” *SMACK*
Oh… no, I wasn’t smacking him. Even though I admit I felt like it. I was still attacking the mosquitoes.
"I have weird dreams", he replies, before flopping over furiously and going back to sleep. Immediately, I might add. Yeah, no making the dreamy happen for him, it’s like: AWAKE — 2 seconds — SNORE.
It’s 4:31 am and I’m getting the hell out of bed!
Now I am here sharing my misery, cuz that’s just how I roll.
So, I figure I have three options.
1. Twin beds
2. A bigger badder mosquito net
(I totally just clapped on a big bloody mosquito right here before I even got to three)
3. Find something that attracts mosquitoes and slather my husband in it before bed.
I’m leaning towards no. 3 at the moment, but that may change after hubby gets up and does his smile and kiss me good morning routine. He’s clever, that one. With the cuteness.
In Africa we used those nets from the ring on the ceiling, but they don’t just hang down around the bed, pretty thought it might look in pictures – you have to tuck it in tight around the mattress on all the sides, and hope that you don’t have to get up to pee in the night. Luckily no mozzies here yet!
Ashs last blog post… the citadel at namur
Omgosh thats awful..and sorta funny..LOL but more awful than anything. Luckily I have only have two bites on the ankles to speak of but we’re still in the beginning parts and Im sure the nasty puffed up marks all over my body will be here soon enough.
Sonyas last blog post… No Bake Cookies
Tammy,
I may get bitten, but it’s one bite to his ten, so maybe the idea has some merit?
O and saw this and thought of you:
http://tinyurl.com/p3mv96
L.L.Bean Insect shield clothing :)
They don’t “do” screens here; I suspect because they don’t need them…the skeeters only like that exotic foreigner blood!
They also don’t “do” air conditioners here much either.
We’ve stayed in quite a few single beds here in Europe… kinda stuck together but with your own sheets and mattress.
I really really like it except that I have to stretch a little farther when I need to kick Rob to make him stop snoring.
mmicheles last blog post… Bredevoort and Nijmegen
lol oh my goodness. What about shutting the window before evening and investing in a good air conditioner.
I feel for you, but that is one thing I liked about summers in NL, no mosquitoes eating me alive not like here in NFLD. Must be a different breed here and there. I hope you come up with something.
Melissa Ds last blog post… I thought I would never have to say/do this…
You poor thing. Getting butt checked is not fun! The mosquitos make it sound like you’re living in the middle ages, either that or down in the Caribbean….What about screens? Do the Dutch not use them?
Amber – Unfortunately I can’t use the off spray. I have eczema and after a while I think my skin would sizzle off hehe
Z / Lala – We do have window screens but it’s not like they came automatically with the house, that’s for sure. We have roll down screens that we put on ourselves but even they aren’t 100% secure. The gaps aren’t anything we can really close and they are so small, it’s hard to believe this amount of mosquitoes are still coming through those tiny spaces. :(
Canucky Woman – Oh it’s so frustrating because no matter where we are, it’s me that gets bitten. They don’t want Xander at all. The odd time he does get a single bite, you’d think he had half a limb bitten off. The drama!
Suzy – So if you are +, do they attack you? I am O- and they looooove me!
Genevieve – oh that’s a brilliant idea! I may give that a try! We did buy 2 of the nets (the €4,99 ones from Blokker or somewhere) and you are right, they totally lay weird, especially because the hook that was already in the ceiling isn’t exactly centered over the bed. We need to get a 2nd hook up there and somehow attach the two nets together and hang them. We have 2 double ones though. I also thought of maybe just cutting the bottom half off one and sewing it along the bottom of the other, so it hangs and gathers on the floor. Then we don’t have to worry about it riding up. Another thought I had was after sewing the extra on, putting some strings like from the side of the net to our curtain rod to hold it out a bit. It’d make our bedroom a bit of a maze of strings for the summer, but at least I’d be able to sleep! I’ll have to look into the Azaron, not sure I could use it with my Eczema.
I was going to ask why you don’t have window screens……..
Lalas last blog post… drumroll not necessary
Do you have one of those moskito nets that comes down from a loop? I never like those since the netting falls too much on the bed and gets tangled in the sheets. Our solution was to buy two single-bed nets, the ones that are sqare shapped, staple them together on one side and cut off the excess in the middle to end up with a really big rectangular net shape so: []+[]=[ ]… or something like it! It’s the only thing that kept me form being eaten alive. Plus a tub of Azaron, an anti-itch stick that does wonder on the moskito bites.
Good luck!!
K. can go to sleep in a freakin’ *instant* too! WTH?? And we do pretty well with the little blood suckers, though when it does happen, he gets it much worse than me. Someone once told me of a theory that the mosquitoes are drawn more to either the + or – of the blood. I’m O+ and he has no idea what he his, so can’t test that theory..lol, maybe you can?
Thing is, WE don’t have the immunity to these bastards — the Dutch do. They have no idea what the hubbub is about because the skeeters ignore them.
When Dutchie came to visit me in Canada the first time, we spent a few days in a cabin in Grand Marais, MN, and HE got the huge skeeter bites — I was barely touched. Here, he’s barely bitten and I get it all…last week on my EYELID.
I feel your pain, sweetie…
You’ve forgotten option number 4. Net in the window. We have it for years and it surely works. No other protection needed ;)
Wow, I’d go crazy too!
Time for me to ship you some OFF! spray :)
Ambers last blog post… Love and Marriage