The Gift of The Flying Ants

We love watching animals planet. Well, maybe Supermama loves watching the Asian Food Channel more, but that’s another story. We love watching animal documentaries on the telly because we get to see the biggest cat in the universe up close. It’s actually a hippo but Raisa kept on saying ‘Caaat’ with her eyes opened really wide and drool coming out of her mouth, there’s no way in hell you could tell her it was a hippo instead. Anyways, apart from the biggest cat, we also got to know about a few interesting facts about how nature works.

Did you know that penguin parents can detect their own chick’s cry from a field of hundreds of seemingly identical baby penguins that are all squawking at the same time at a distance of 200 meters? We didn’t know that too. It’s just the amazing wonder of nature. Parents of identical twins, babies that have the same DNA and look exactly like each other, can at a glance seemingly tell their children apart. People are always intrigued by this impossible feat. How can you tell them apart? they always asked. Well, the answer is quite simple. It is through the Wonder of Nature. Or in our case, it’s through the gift of the flying ants.

You cant find this on the documentary channels, but babies are incredible yummy. Not to us of course, but to the little insects called mosquitoes. From the beginning of life, when the babies were still having that heavenly fragrance, the mosquitoes were already following them ever ready to have a little bite. And then there were the flying ants. These little buggers just dropped from the sky, landed on your babies or hid under the pillow. Before you know it, you’d hear a cry, your baby just got bitten by the little bugger. And if your baby is like Raisa who’s allergic to insect bites, then you’ll notice a big-assed swelling on the area that got bitten. That’s when you started looking for the little red ant, and when you saw it, you immediately squashed it. When you saw it was still moving, you squashed it again. When it wasn’t moving anymore, you squashed it again.. just to be sure. But why then did I say ‘the gift of the flying ants’ when all I wanted to do was to squelch them. The truth is while a swelling on a baby’s body might elicit sighs and sympathy from most parents, for the fathers of identical twins, it is sometimes a Godsend.

So all this goes to say that, unless the little red ants also decide to bite Raina on her eyelid, Raisa is going to be easily recognizable for at least four days or so. And that’s how nature works.

This is Raisa, and you don’t need to be penguin parent to recognise her.

And this is Raina. Notice the difference between the two?