stung by a bee!

poor sparrow had to experience a bee sting (BS!) yesterday. i was driving her home from samuel's house after work, when suddenly she started completely freaking out and shrieking in the back seat (BS!). I knew it was the kind of shrieking where she had gotten hurt, and i glanced back and saw her frantically itching/rubbing her shoulder. i guessed it was a bee sting right then and there and pulled over to take a closer look. we were almost home and i didn't see the bee around, so the best i could do was to tell her we would be home soon and i would look at it as soon as possible. i hauled arse on the final stretch home and got her and a bunch of stuff into the house with the poor dear crying hysterically. when i pulled her out of her car seat, sure enough, the wicked creature was still nosing about in her car seat! i got a paper towel and smashed it dead, then put it in a ziploc bag to analyze later. the fact that i got 'im seemed to make her feel somewhat better, but everything was pretty hectic until i got her in the bedroom and got her clothes off. except she freaked out even more when i took off her dress. "my dress! my dress! i wanna wear the red dress!!!!" she hollered. (she had found this interesting red corduroy dress in a bag of clothes holly had given me for segundo, and she insisted on trying it on. amazingly, it still fit her, and it has been her favorite thing to wear these past few days...)

anyways, the dress had to come off for me to examine her shoulder properly, but she really wouldn't let me anywhere near the sting. i finally determined that there was no stinger in the wound, but i really wanted to clean it off with water at least, and she wouldn't let me. the great thing was that holly had just given me a book called "nature's pharmacy for children" that day when i had picked up sparrow from her house. it was one of my baby shower gifts from the girls and it had arrived at holly's house in the mail. so--aya was here that day and i handed her the book and had her looking up remedies for bee stings as i tried to deal with sparrow's hysteria. she said calendula cream or a moistened aspirin rubbed on the area would be an effective treatment. this ended up not being too helpful though since sparrow wouldn't let me touch it. she was putting on a worse show than when we wash her hair... however, having that book reminded me of something i had read about in that book months earlier when i got it at the library: rescue remedy.

there is this company called bach who makes flower extracts as nontoxic homeopathic remedies, and their most popular one is called "rescue remedy." it is for times of intense stress or ire, and if anything qualified, this moment certainly did. so i read in the book about how to administer the stuff, and it said you could put drops in a glass of water. i had bought some at lassens when i'd first read about it, but never used it before. now i put it in some water and tasted it. tasteless, thank goodness! i asked sparrow if she wanted some water, and she had seen me put the drops in so she was really suspicious, but seeing me drink it, she took some, and i got her to drink the whole thing! sure enough, within moments her cries subsided and she was able to calmly read books with me before naptime. then we fell asleep together, but when i woke up, i managed to sneak some calendula cream onto her shoulder without her waking up--score! by the time she got up from her nap, the sting was barely even visible. i had also been nervous about allergic reaction, of course, cause you never can tell until the reaction happens (hives, swelling, difficulty breathing, etc.) but thank God she ended up not having any allergic reaction to the bee, so--now we know! i am super grateful. check out the amazingness of God as he creates flowers that can give extracts to calm the emotions! it is just baffling!!! this stuff is going to be a new favorite ally of mine, i can tell. i might even use it in labor.

sparrow talked about her bee sting all day. she told janny downstairs, "a bee STING me!" with wide eyes, and she also told daddy on the phone, as well as alan and melissa. my favorite moment, though, happened when she was still bawling--she looked at me with this tear-streaked face and said frantically, "it went bzzzzzz bzzzzzz ZZP!," moving her little fingers around in the "bee" pattern that we always do. it used to be fun: bzzzzz-zip! now it was all too real. learning about the world can be so painful at times!