Today I tried a little experiment. I let my kids go outside by themselves.

I have flirted with this idea before, but have been too chicken to really go for it. I'm not sure why. We have a well-secured, fenced in yard and it is pretty childproofed. I mean, there aren't any chainsaws sitting around or rusty nails sprinkled through the grass at least. When I take them outside, they entertain themselves pretty well with minimal instruction from me. I just never underestimate that if there is trouble to be found, they will find it.

And also, I have a very vivid imagination. I know for a fact that we have coyotes and badgers in our backyard, on the other side of the fence. I've seen them. Also snakes, and spiders the size of the palm of my hand. Rationally I know the chances of my children being attacked by wildlife is less than miniscule, but like I said, I have a wild imagination. While I'm pretty sure a dingo won't eat my baby, I don't know about the wolves that our neighbors reported seeing last year.

But I really had to clean the house and knew I could do it a whole lot quicker without three kids following behind me to mess it up again. I decided to let them out, and be free-range boys.

It was going perfectly for quite a while. I kept an eye out the window while I cleaned up, and had all the windows open so I could hear what they were up to. I got the dishes done, the bathroom scrubbed, a few loads of laundry washed, the floor mopped and the carpet vacuumed.

As I was finishing up, I heard a blood curdling scream coming from Quinn. I peeked out the window, but couldn't see him so I ran outside. He was screaming "AHHHHHHHH! Help me, Mommy! He's biting me! Mommy! Mommy! Help! He's biting me!"

The first thing I generally would thing when I hear "he's biting me" is that one of his brothers was gnawing on him. That's not uncommon. But Dax and Heath were up on the deck with me. I ran down the deck stairs, panicking that I was about to see a bloodied Quinn being carried away by a mountain lion or chupacabra or Bigfoot.

Quinn was screaming bloody murder when I got to him. Not the normal loud Quinn shrieking I'm used to, but a scream of pure panic (which of course caused pure panic in me)

"Mommy, help me! Please, help me!" he sobbed.

I asked "What's wrong", as I didn't see any carnivorous beasts in the immediate area.

He held out his hand. An ant was crawling around his thumb. Not a herd of fire ants. Not even a proper ant. It was one of those tiny, almost invisible ants.

And that's what all the screaming was about. I brushed the ant off and Quinn went romping off to his sandbox and I sat down on a lawn chair and finished my heart attack.

Seriously, they are all just trying to do me in. They will not be happy until I've had a complete nervous breakdown. With teeth being broken, and broken teeth being pulled out, and Benadryl overdoes and ant "attacks", I think I might have aged 9.75 years in the last three days.