Fruit Flies, Don't Bother Me!

          We have been plagued with a host of fruit flies. This is not my first adventure with this either. A family of seven + loads of dishes + a few extra things to be done (like moving or illness or a small crisis over animals) = a small feast for fruit flies. Disgusting and annoying? Yes!! Harmful to our health? Not that I'm aware of!? Also, I've noticed that we love certain foods they love. They adore bananas, and so do I. Part of Mr. Blue Eye's food training has been thanks to a good supply of bananas.  He has gone from very finely mashed to lumpy, clumpy bananas in the past few months. This has opened him up to a wide variety of table food that at first was too textured for him to handle. (He finally has two teeth on the top...he could've played Dracula for Halloween if I was into that whole vampire thing.) The other surprising thing that they like is cups that have had tea in them. Yesterday,  when we tried to clean up their major food sources, they congregated in the bathrooms on the Softsoap and toothbrushes. I even discovered several of them mating on the cupboards. We caught at least 50 in homemade fruit fly traps, but it didn't even make a dent. (Is their mating getting out of hand or have they found a secret fruit fly door to re-enter the house?) This was all the more difficult since poor Mr. Blue Eyes has been throwing up. He has only been on clear fluids since Thursday evening when he first deposited, what felt like, his entire stomach contents all over both of us. At this point, we both appreciate a moment of prayer for him to feel better.
         Fruit flies make me think about the little irritating thoughts that come up in my everyday life that threaten to make my day bad even though nothing majorly bad happened. Take Thursday for example, when all I could think about is how I didn't have time to make fresh bread. I had to stop and consciously choose to think about what I had gotten done, like baking banana blueberry muffins and yogurt. I had cleaned up my sick sweet baby several times and spent time reading/singing "Truckery Rhymes" with my kindergartener. I also finally found homes for all our jackets (our bench is now free to be used the way we had intended: to sit and put shoes on). Despite all this, my tendency was to let that one negative fruit fly thought buzz around in my brain.
          At the moment I needed to add carrots to our soup last night, Mr. Blue Eyes had another incident (after a six hour hiatus) all over the floor which prompted yet another bath (and another clothes change for me...just when you think laundry is caught up, right?). This was right before I expected Charles home. I kept feeling badly that it would appear to Charles when he arrived that I hadn't done my job all day. The soup would be hot, the carrots crunchy, and the mom wary (waiting for the next heave). Fruit flies. Nothing life threatening had happened,  just pesky little thoughts were trying to derail my day.

            Focusing on truth acts like a giant fruit fly swatter to get rid of these annoyances. I am a huge fan of "Battlefield of the Mind" by Joyce Meyer because it was honestly the first time I actually realized I had a choice in what I thought about (Read Phil. 4:8, and you find that it is totally biblical). It takes a conscious effort to not get bogged down by the bad thoughts. Then and only then, can you say "Fruit flies, don't bother me!" or better yet, "Fruit flies don't bother me."