Wednesday, June 23, 2010

open mouth, insert....BUG!?

my life is really not that interesting. lately, though, we have had some.....share worthy events. i don't pretend to think that everyone cares. my mom does. she cares about everything i do. she even wants to know when i vacuum my floor. and you'll see why when i share this story.

have i talked about my crippling fear of bugs? let's go there for a minute. i have a crippling fear of all things creepy and crawly. actually i kind of have a lot of silly little fears. and i am pretty sure they are all self inflicted.

let me explain.

anything with more than 4 legs, and 2 eyes is just unnatural. as is anything with less than two leg (unless it's supposed to have two legs, but by some unfortunate event, no longer does.) i don't know exactly when i concocted this theory, but i think it was around 10th grade.

living in hawaii only served to exacerbate that fear, when, after having lived there for maybe 2 months, a centipede the size of a ruler came crawling towards me. (i'm getting the creepy crawlies just THINKING about it. blaaah). one of the worst "episodes", if you will, was when i went to put the cover on the grill one night, and as i tossed it over the top, i spotted a centipede that was maybe 4 inches long and half an inch wide. i stood, LITERALLY unable to move in the yard for a couple of minutes. i started crying, because i could. not. move. i am so not kidding.

so, bugs. me. not a match made in heaven.

well, last night, my brave-to-a-fault baby decided to find a little creepy crawly and PUT. IT. IN. HER. MOUTH! right about the time joel was wrist deep in raw meat.

here's how this unfolded-

i'm cooking, joel is slicing, bella is crawling around getting into trouble. usual scene. i wash my hands, go pick her up and sit down in the rocker to cuddle a little. she smiles with that wide open mouth smile she has and curled up on her little baby tongue is BUG!! it's one of those millipede looking things. the ones that curl up and have lots of little legs. i don't know where it came from or how it got in my house, but there it is, inside her mouth.

in about 1/100th of a second all these thoughts start flooding my mind about her swallowing it, or getting bit (i don't even know if those things bite), then how it would feel in her mouth, then how terrified i am of bugs, HOW THE H AM I GOING TO GET IT OUT!?!?!

now, let me remind you that not only do i teach lifesaving, but i also greatly stress staying calm in an emergency.

but not when it's my baby. and she has a BUG IN HER MOUTH!!

so what do i do? run around screaming, of course! what any good mother would do!

bella is unphased, until i stick my finger, wrapped in a paper towel, in her mouth and try to pull it out. and it goes over to her cheek (why do babies have such small mouths anyway!?!?) then i stick my finger in there and it is on her LIP! (HER LIP!!!!) so i knock it off onto the ground. then i pull her to my chest and say, "i'm so sorry! i'm so sorry! i'm so sorry!" over and over again, until she stops crying.

dramatic? yes. have you met me or my child? we are, in fact, quite dramatic (though i am trying to rise above that, and doing it with flying colors, i might add).

most people who overcome fears talk about a catalyst moment that propelled them through their fear and they walked away from it and never looked back. was this my moment? not. even. close. because today i saw another one of those bugs (can someone please tell me where they are coming from!?), and i snatched bella off the ground, put her in her pack and play and started vacuuming.


3 comments:

Leah said...

This made me laugh...because I too am deathly afraid of creepy crawlers. Especially spiders...and I've had many episodes where I spot one and somehow become paralyzed. God forbid Eric is ever not home when this happens because I'm pretty sure I'd faint. People usually say you grow out of those fears when you have kids (ie, I have a problem with "Getting sick" as I call it because even the word makes me want to gag) but my mom wears that when its your darling child all that goes away. We shall see! But..congrats to you for momentarily taming your fear :) You rock!

Belle's Butterfly said...

This is too funny. My daughter and I are both dramatic. But I can not imagine what I would do if she had a bug in her mouth. My husband takes care of all the bugs that seem to find there way in our house. Thankfully he is always home to take care of them.

Carey Bassett said...

This had me rolling! My sister is as scared as you are of bugs or anything crawly. She, too, would have frozen and probably cried seeing a centipede and calls her husband to kill crickets that somehow find their way into her bathrooom. Now, I can remain somewhat calm, but a bug in Savannah's mouth... that would cause a major freak out I am sure. I'm glad the millipede didn't bite Bella.