Learning through experience is painful.

Poor Arielle got her first sting today. I was in the kitchen with Gabrielle when I heard this frantic, frightened screaming from the bedroom.

I had Gabrielle off my lap and back onto the floor before I knew what I was doing. I met Arielle running down the hall, sobbing and holding her arm.

I hugged her and picked her up to carry her into the kitchen. She kept crying, saying something about being bitten. Looking at her arm I could see one small puncture wound. I figured it had been the cat. She has a bad habit of hugging the cat practically to death, of which neither we nor the cat can seem to break her. The cat must have finally lost her temper, I figured, and bit back.

I got the first aid kit out and started getting ready to clean her wound, which brought about fresh screams of anguish.

"No! It will hurt me!"

I ruthlessly dripped Bactine over her arm anyway, gritting my teeth against the resulting shriek.

"Sweetie, you have got to leave the cat alone."

"It wasn't the cat!" she protested. "The bug bit me!"

A bug? That scared me. What kind of bug? Oh, please, not a spider.

"Where was it?" I'd better go try to find it, I thought.

"In my window. Waah!"

I left her crying and went to check. In her bedroom window a slender black wasp was buzzing around the glass, trying to get out. No wonder she'd screamed like that!

Poor thing. It took forever to get her calmed down. She fought every step of the way as I tried to make her feel better. Then I explained to her about stings vs bites and showed her a drawing of a wasp on the internet that showed where the sting is located. We talked about the importance of not trying to touch insects, no matter how much you want to play with them. She's very nervous about the idea of wasps, now, and keeps asking if they like to bite little girls.

Nothing like experience to drive your parents admonitions into your head. Poor little sweetie.