To preface this story, a little history on Princess M. She does NOT like bugs. That's it. What more can I say? If it crawls, flies, slides or slithers, she doesn't like it, period. When I say that M "doesn't like", you should read "abhors, loathes, is absolutely phobic of". Now this is not completely unfounded as we just left the buggiest (is that a word?) place I have ever lived and M had an altercation of some sort with almost the entire population of bugs there. Fire ants, biting flies, spiders, and the world's most aggressive mosquitoes. Don't even get me started on the Mississippi Kites, (I know they are birds not bugs but I did say flies...) that's a whole additional blog entry in itself. SO, shortly before we left Altus, M got a mosquito bite on her forehead. I know it was a mosquito bite because I smashed said bug on her forehead myself in my dear friend Dana's backyard. I have witnesses. A day and a half later the child was unrecognizable. She looked like she had lost a round with a heavyweight. Her eyes were swollen nearly shut, and the bridge of her nose was nowhere to be found. The pediatrician's response...."yep, that's some reaction to a mosquito bite..." Now not thinking clearly about the little ears in the room, I proceeded to ask him about any correlation between this and bee sting allergies. Since my mom is allergic, I thought it better to be prepared. He assured me that the two are not related, but prescribed an epipen just in case. This is where it goes south. He described how to use this wonderful device, and presto, M's fear of bee stings escalated to epic proportions. At that very moment, I knew my innocent inquiry was coming back to haunt me, eventually. Jump to our arrival here in CA, where immediately M is in love with all of the beautiful flowers blooming everywhere. Then she notices the accompanying winged creatures who are also in quite an abundance. Uh oh! Suddenly, every trip outside is an adventure in ducking, dodging, swatting and whining. After 3 weeks of reassuring M that the bees have more than enough lovely nectar to keep their attention, you guessed it. She gets stung in the Little Tikes Playhouse on the playground at school. I knew as soon as I heard C answer the phone that their was drama and with M, that usually plays out like a tragedy. So off he went to assess the situation. Obviously he found a quite distraught little girl, however with presents from the office staff for being the first official "sting survivor" of the year and kisses from Dad off she went back to class.
When we arrived to pick her up two hours later, she was feeling quite the hero. She also couldn't show me her battle scar as she wasn't quite sure which arm had been stung...LOL. Sadly, the story is not completely over as at 3AM this morning I got the call, "Mommy, I had a bad dream..." What did she dream of you ask? Mountain lions... I guess we have moved on from all things winged to all things furry. I am hoping my reassurances about mountain lions will not trigger the dreaded, "but you also said the bees didn't want me..."
As a side note to this little story, L does not share the same ideas about insects. She loves them... ALL. When a fly zooms past, she tries to catch it. She will pick up anything she can get her hands on. She has a particular favorite right now though, that may send Grandma into apoplexy. Monterey is currently having trouble with the Brown Apple Moth. This bothersome moth starts out, obviously, as a tiny caterpillar. For those of you who know my phobia of all snakes, it is matched only by Grandma's phobia of caterpillars... So, this apple definitely fell far from her genetic tree on this one.
Today's pics are totally unrelated, just cute.
Double Trouble...
Partners...
1 comment:
S - Princess P is going to give Princess M a run for her money. She quit tee-ball after one practice as she got dirt on her shoes!!! and she was too hot!! She doesn't even like to go outside for more than five minutes at a time. Love you girl, J
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