Bugs

"Aaaaiiieeee!!"

The very shrill, very intense scream one would call blood curdling comes from LMNOB. In the midst of doing the dishes, I dash to her side with soapy hands to see what the culprit of such a sound was.

There on the floor is a very fat cricket. Punkinhead is looking at it, poking around, all the while LMNOB is screaming, "NO BROTHER!!! Don't touch it!" That's what the scream was all about? I would have thought her innards were rupturing by the guttural sounds of anguish escaping her mouth

The more she screams, the more interested he gets, and then...he looks at me to see if I'm on to his little game. Nodding as I chuckle to myself, my eyes tell Punkinhead, I know exactly what you're doing.

Time for maternal intervention? Yeah....probably so.

"LMNOB, why are you so afraid?"

"It's going to eat me!"

"Nah, crickets don't eat meat, let alone people. They like plants." I think?!? Sometimes motherhood means inventing these things.

Me again, "It's so very cold outside and this cricket just wants to warm up. Crickets are good, honey, they help stir up the soil so that plants can grow well. They're like friends to our gardens." Uh, sorta.

It does the trick though, as LMNOB bends down on hands and knees and speaks to the cricket in very high-pitched parentese, "You're just so cold baby cricket, we'll keep you warm. Brother and I will take care of you."

Punkinhead follows suit and before I know it, my two children are nurturing a cricket that just scared the bejesus out of LMNOB.

When one pictures parenthood, there's the vision of Mommies rocking their babies, sleepless nights, the first day of school, battles during the teenage years, etc..Never in a million years would I have envisioned a parenting vignette from the future which had two children crawling around on the kitchen floor, chasing a cricket with lovingly shrill voices saying things like, "Poor baby, we'll take care of you!"

This post inspired by Purple_Kangaroo's Worm entry.