Spending time in the backyard means different things to different people.  To my husband, it's chatting with neighbors and friends.  To my teenagers, it's bonfires and marshmallow roasts over the fire pit.  To my eight-year-old, it's pickup soccer games and tossing baseballs with Daddy.

To me, it's collecting mosquito bites.  Mosquitoes just love me.  Too bad I don't love them back.

Once our swimming pool is assembled in the backyard--hopefully this weekend--I'm going to have to spend a lot more time out there.  Generally I spend a good amount of the summer hiding in the house, but with my new role as Lifeguard/Referee/Kool-Aid Mom/Provider of Dry Towels, I'll have to be outside.

Maybe I'll even get a suntan.  That's debatable; usually all I do is burn and peel.  But it's pretty much a guarantee that I'll collect mosquito bites on my knees, ankles, elbows, and arms--and any other place the mosquitoes can reach.  Short of wearing long pants, high socks and a sweatshirt in the heat of a New Jersey summer, there's little I can do to prevent this fate.

I'm hoping that my husband will pick up a bug zapper the next time he heads to the hardware store.  Whoever said that "it's the little things" that can make a summer more enjoyable surely was not talking about mosquitoes.

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