I’ve mentioned a number of times that Charlotte is utterly terrified of bugs. Doesn’t matter what sort of bug, how big, or how infinitesimally small. The slightest hint of the presence of a bug will make her scream like someone is slicing off her arm with a handsaw. And I don’t know why. She’s never had any serious trauma related to bugs, hasn’t been watching creepy science-fiction bug movies, etc. But few are the evenings when I am not summoned to her bedroom to kill a moth or a mosquito or even a teeny-weeny gnat prior to bedtime, and she has had near-complete mental breakdowns when there have been bugs in the car.

Yesterday I thought we were going to have to take her to the hospital for a shot of Ativan to calm her down because she was worked up into a shrieking frenzy while we were at the pick-your-own apple place. We were in line for ice cream, and, as is often the case where there are open garbage cans full of sticky sweet things, there were a fair number of yellowjackets buzzing around. No matter where we went to try to get away from them, there seemed to be another one, and with each new appearance she got more and more worked up. This, in turn, led to some bad parenting moments, and found us all sitting in the car, overdone and undone. On top of some other dramatics in our little family recently, it was really not the way to top off an otherwise fun weekend, but there you have it.

Melodrama notwithstanding, I think part of Charlotte’s terror comes from anticipating that the pain of being bitten or stung by an insect is several oders of magnitude worse than the reality of it. She’s not an outdoor kid, so she isn’t used to an armful of summertime mosquito bites to desensitize her to the mundane aspect of bug bites. When she does get them, she agonizes over them for days, applying various lotions, creams and sprays to her grievous wound. She also hears regularly about the dangers to people with allergies to bee stings and I think she believes that a bee sting must be one step shy of murder. It’s too bad that her reading skills aren’t up to it, because last night I found this webpage and wanted to share it with her Quite honestly, at this point, I actually wish that she would get stung once and get it over with so that she could maybe let go of what is becoming more than just an ordinary childhood fear.