A rite of passage
The day started with an argument.
“Mom, I don’t want to go summer camp today.”
I mentally ticked through the list of things I was planning to do without her… umm… help. “It’s the last day, sweetie. You don’t want to miss that.”
“But Mo-om.”
“Come on. It’s just one more day. You’ll get to say good-bye to your teachers and your friends. There will probably be a party.”
“A party?”
That clinched the deal. She went to summer camp.
About noon, I got a phone call from the summer camp. The child had been stung by a bee.
The person in charge of the camp had her in the office. “It’s on her lip. It doesn’t look too bad. We gave her a popsicle. She said she wanted to talk to you.”
“Mooooooommmmmyyyyyyy! I… I… I…” unintelligible snuffling sobs…” BEE!!!!”
“Do you want me to come get you, honey?”
More snuffling sobs. The person who runs the camp translated: “She says yes.”
I went and got the child. I found her sitting on a bench, goo from a huge green popsicle dripping down her tee shirt. Between the swollen eyes and nose from crying and the swollen lip, she looked like a prizefighter having a bad day.
A prizefighter wearing a glittery yellow tee shirt and perky blue skirt.
[I’d like to note here that I do ask her permission before taking these teary photos. She knows they are for the blog and is OK with it.]
I gave her another popsicle and sat her on the couch with a box of tissues and a towel to watch Bakugan. I can’t watch Bakugan without my head exploding (it is beyond wretched… the child says I just don’t understand it), so I went back to work. She, naturally, got bored with just sitting and spent the next hour walking around the house and randomly screaming “OUCH” at the top of her lungs… giving me a minor heart attack every single time.
This is what the bee sting looked like after four popsicles.
It was completely gone and forgotten by morning.
