B and the...well...the Bee.

Or the wasp, to be more accurate. The kiddos were outside on our little porch playing happily last week, as I ran around trying to get stuff together to go to the park. I listened as I ran, of course; and soon I heard the Big Brother telling Little Sis "No, B! (yes, he calls her B, too) Don't touch it! Leave it alone!!" this was shortly followed by Little Sis crying, which soon escalated to her screaming...so I hurried outside to see what was going on, fully expecting it to be the typical sibling, she-touched-my-bicycle-he-moved-my-hand-away kind of thing. What I saw, however, was Pax stomping aggressively on something on the ground. "What's that?" I asked "It's a BEE! I told her not to touch it, Mama!" he insisted, still stomping on the bee (a wasp, actually, on closer inspection); at which point I think I mumbled something incoherent about being a good big brother and grabbed my screaming daughter, rushing her upstairs to where, among other things, I knew we had some benedryl. I looked at her tiny hand (not easy, when she was still screaming in pain and trying to pull away!) and at first didn't even see where she'd been stung...but I DID see the stinger still in her hand. Apparently she thought the black-and-yellow striped bug was pretty, and picked it up for a closer inspection. Not a good idea, just FYI...poor baby. I had to dig the stinger out with tweezers before I could even get her to calm down or make sure she wasn't blowing up like a balloon...I was pretty sure she was breathing fine, because I was pretty sure my hearing wouldn't be by the time I got her calmed down. It felt like it took forever to get the stinger out. I washed her little hand, finally seeing the actual sting on her pointer finger; gave her a little benedryl just to be on the safe side...and took her down stairs to watch her finger and hand slowly swell up 3 times bigger than usual. Seriously. It was crazy. I also called the nurse at our pediatrician's office, just to be on the safe side...pretty much she told me I'd done the right thing, to keep an eye on her, and if she started having trouble breathing to take her straight to the emergency room. Just what every mother wants to hear. At least with Adam working at the hospital I wouldn't have to worry about him meeting us there! Finally, after all that, I called Adam at the lab. Mostly because my adrenaline was still pumping like mad and I wanted him to know what we'd been doing with our morning.

Once B had calmed down, Pax crept over to us where we snuggled on the couch. "Can I give her a kiss now, Mama? Is she calming down?" he asked me, snuggling up to my leg. After I told him he could and that she was ok, he gave her a very sweet little kiss and she cuddled up with him...they really are little buddies already. I love it! I attempted to get a picture with my point & shoot of her hand to show Adam; it didn't turn out very well but she wasn't up for a photo shoot. Can't say I blame her!You can see the red mark where she got stung; this is only about 1/3 swollen. Her whole little hand swelled up too. Pax was so sweet and worried about her...I told him how proud I was of him that he'd been trying to protect his baby sister, telling her not to touch the bee and stomping on it afterwords. We talk a LOT about how, since he's the big brother, he needs to be especially nice to litter kids and look out for them....amazing how many bigger boys we've meet lately that just aren't nice at.all. to smaller kiddos. Adam and I want him to learn to be a protector of the smaller and weaker people he meets in life-gentleman may be an old-fashioned word, and I don't in any way want to take away my son's rough-and-tumble boy-ness, but that's kinda the idea. The gentleman part, I mean. But seeing him take action to protect his sister was pretty neat. I hope they always have that kind of relationship.

....and I'm super happy to say that little miss is NOT allergic to wasps! Sadly, however, a few days later we learned she IS allergic to peanuts. Just like Pax was at this age; although her reaction wasn't as severe. Can you see the red hives all over her face? It was another benedryl-and-watch-closely situation, only Daddy was home that time. Didn't seem to bother her in the least, other than being a little itchy-but I'm very thankful for benedryl!As much as I love learning new things about my children, I think I'd like a little break now....