Never say never

Once, I was leading a group of third-grade kids on a nature hike through the woods, and we accidentally disturbed a nest of yellowjacket wasps. Within seconds there were hundreds of wasps flying everywhere, stinging everyone. I vividly remember pulling them, one by throbbing one, off kids' bodies, their arms, even one unlucky boy's lip. We all ran like hell back to the nature center and spent the rest of the day doing first aid. I didn't get a single sting that day.

I worked at another nature center for a while that had an active honeybee colony. I had "check up duty" and had to look in on them often. Never got stung.

I have had lunch outdoors countless times with hundreds of elementary school students (oh, the sugary sweets! The juice boxes! The flailing arms, swatting at the wasps!) and never once been stung.

This afternoon, D and the kids and I were outside, and I went up to the side of the house to unravel the hose.

"Be careful." D said, pointing out a couple of yellowjackets lazing around in the air. "You don't want to rile them up."

I went about my business unwinding the hose, trying to get the kinks out. Then I noticed several wasps flying around near my ankles, and I decided it was time to bring the kids to the back yard, lest someone get stung. A few were flying up near my face. I felt one fly into the loose strands of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail.

Not being one to panic, I just ignored it. I figured it would leave as soon as it could, and that the less I interfered, the better. (Note-this is true! Swatting, running, yelling, flailing, all these behaviors are likely to provoke an attack. If you encounter a yellowjacket, best to be calm, and ignore it or just leave the area.)

"Come on, guys, the wasps are getting kind of nervous with us here. Let's go play in the back yard." D hurried them to the back yard and I dropped the hose and followed.

So, the wasp must have been a little put off by my nonchalance. I was standing by the fence chatting with D when, out of habit, I reached to tuck my hair behind my ear.

"Yeoowch!" I screeched, swatting at the side of my head, as a sharp dart of pain shot into my ear. I quickly turned and started toward the house, trying in vain to be nonchalant. Wow did it hurt!

Unlike honeybees, which die after stinging, yellowjackets can sting their percieved attacker over and over. What's more, in response to a perceived threat, they emit a chemical which other yellowjackets sense, and the others will almost always come to defend their nest. And that means stinging-lots of stinging. So, I had riled up their nest and they were pissed. At me.

"Get the kids inside! Get the kids inside!" I yelled. (So much for nonchalance. So much for not instilling fear of bugs into the hearts of my children.)

Poor sweeties. They both started screaming and crying. They were really scared! D got them inside and I rushed to the freezer for a handful of ice. I spent the afternoon with ice on the side of my head. I tried to be calm and keep hanging out with them while they played with D. I didn't want to scare them even further by just disappearing after this happened. They needed to see that it was really no big deal.

The incident occured about 6 hours ago. I am pretty sure I was stung twice on the ear and once on the side of my head. My ear looked strangely like a plum earlier this afternoon, in both size and color.

But, you know. No big deal. I'd rather it happened to me than one of them. And I'd rather they see that it's no biggie. People get stung sometimes, and it's no big deal. Yeah, my ear swelled up (another teachable moment!) and my ear was ringing for half the day, but whatever. The upside is, we got to talk a lot about how different animals defend their families and their homes. We got to talk about why I got stung and they also got to see that this mysterious thing they've feared --a wasp sting--is really not that big a deal.

I've never had poison ivy either. Tomorrow I think I'll go look for a patch of that and roll around.

Judgment call

Something really bad could have happened to my daughter today. I'm not at all sure what it was. Maybe you can tell me.

After a lovely afternoon of swimming with the kids this afternoon, I was driving "the long way" home around the lake. The sunroof and windows were wide open, and the kids took notice of all the sounds they were hearing-the waves, the breeze in the trees, the sounds of people laughing as they walked. Most intriguing of all was the "clink clink" of the ropes and lines on the sailboats moored by the east shore of the lake. Although they were both tired from swimming all afternoon, they wanted to sit by the shore and listen to the boats.

Happy to prolong our picture-perfect afternoon, I parked along the road, and we got out, still in our damp swimsuits. We walked across the road, crossed the grassy "boulevard" between the sidewalk and the road, and planted ourselves on a park bench about, oh, 100 feet from the car. We cuddled up on the bench, hunkered down together, watching the boats and the frothy water, a chilly breeze coming off the lake.

"I'm shivering," L said.

"Let's go to the car and get our clothes on, then we can come back here to this bench."

"Noooo!" she protested, "I want to wait here and watch the water."

I sat there a moment, thinking. The car was so close. I knew they were both tired and would most likely stay right there on the bench. But there was no barrier between the bench and the water, and J is after all, only 2. L, I knew, would stay put. And I could be to the car and back in less than a minute. It was literally just across the road. Then we could all be warm and cozy and stay a while.

"Please go get my clothes, mama!" She implored.

"Can you stay right here? Don't get off this bench for any reason. Stay right here. I'm taking J and we'll be back with sweatshirts to warm us all up."

I scooped up a shivering J and we shuffled towards the car. We'd gone maybe 25 feet when I got to the edge of the grassy boulevard, and I heard this from behind me:

"That's really not a good idea, ma'am."

I turned to see two women, one probably in her 60's, and one who looked to be about 10 years older than me, standing together on the path, shaking their heads, looking at me.

"Excuse me?" I said, surprised.

"That's really not a good idea." One of them, I don't know which, said again.

I was totally flustered. I had no idea what to say. "We'll be fine!" I spat, and practically ran to the bench, yanked L off without a word, and rushed both my kids to the car. I was shaking and kind of frantic, a mixture of anger, shame, and fear rushing through me.

I had the following thoughts, all at the same time:

Who do they think they are, questioning my judgment as a mother? Do they really think I'd put my daughter in harm's way?

What was I thinking? How could I be so stupid? What's wrong with me?

My God, what if something happened to her?

When we got home, I watched her little-kid body, her damp, stringy hair, her tanned legs as she hopped to the back door, singing a song about sunshine and boats. My eyes filled with tears. What was I thinking? What if something had happened?

But here's the thing: I try to let my kids have some of the basic freedoms that I enjoyed as a kid. I don't believe in living in fear. I want my kids to feel safe and secure, and not be worried that the boogyman is going to get them, or that nature, or their community is a place to be afraid. I had a highly anxious mother, and spent a lot of my own childhood worrying and being afraid of things I couldn't quite define.

To me, at the time, this decision to run to the car seemed totally reasonable. Middle of the afternoon, me less than 150 feet from her, for maybe a minute, and within eyeshot the whole time. That didn't seem so risky to me.

Now, I'm not so sure. Circling back around the lake on the way home, when I saw the two ladies walking on the path, I considered stopping the car and asking them what they had thought was going to happen. Why, exactly, it was such a bad idea. Were they thinking she'd jump in the lake and drown? Get abducted? Molested?

My mind is reeling. And I feel horribly, horribly guilty for even considering leaving her there for a minute. Ashamed. What if they were right? What if I had left her and one of those things had happened?

Was I (almost) negligent? Where do we, as mothers, draw the line between being OK with a small amount of risk and being stupid? And which of those things was I, today?

stormy weather

Are your kids scared of storms? Mine go back and forth. Sometimes they love 'em, sometimes not so much. If there is a rainstorm during the day, what fun! We are outside in rain gear, splashing away, collecting the rain in buckets, watching the flowers in our garden get drenched.

What helps my kids relax about storms is to watch them, experience them, and talk about them. It's great to find ways to have fun in the rain. Even a simple walk down the street can be a real treat during a storm. When a nighttime storm happens, remembering the fun we've had playing in rain during the day can be a real comfort. Think about it: when we head inside at the first sign of rain, what does that communicate to our kids?

Thursday night's storm was a real doozy. The lightning and loud thunder went on for a couple of hours in the night. I knew L would be pretty freaked by this one. Sure enough, when I opened her bedroom door and crept in, I found her with her hands over her ears, and her face squashed into her pillow. She was sweating. (J slept right through it!)

I brought her to my bed, which is surrounded on all sides by windows. There is a wonderful, spreading silver maple just outside the window. I perched her on my lap and held her tight. Although it was the middle of the night, the city lights, and the frequent bursts of lightning kept the yard pretty well lit. We watched the rain. We watched the tree moving in the wind, and I rocked her with that same rhythm. When the sky lit up with lightning, I held her tight and told her she was safe.

Then, I started pointing out what I could see, and asking her to tell me what she could see. Once she started noticing the familiar she seemed to feel more comfortable, and it helped her mellow out considerably:

• We watched the limbs wave back and forth in the rain.


• We watched the raindrops pour down over stuff in the yard: my wheelbarrow, the lawnchairs, the sandbox, the birdbath.


• I pointed out the garden, and described the water going down into the soil, so the plants could slurp it up with their roots.


• We listed animals that were so happy it was raining: The ducks on the lake. The birds in the trees, getting a bath and splashing in the puddles. The squirrels in the trees, getting their fur wet and clean.


• We remembered times that she and J and I have splashed in puddles and played in the rain.


• And, of course, we talked about thunder. I didn't bother explaining to her that thunder is created by the sudden burst of heated air from the lightning. I didn't go into details about electrons flying around in the sky (a.k.a. lightning). I simply told her that thunder is the sound made by two heavy clouds bumping into each other way up in the sky. The clouds are heavy because they are full of water. A little "scientific license" is necessary sometimes. Heavy clouds, she can relate to. Electrons and air pressure? We'll get to that, later.

Since we didn't go out in the middle of the night, the next day, we checked out the effects of the storm. We looked at puddles. Splashed in them. We checked out the garden, plants still drooping and heavy with the rain. We felt the dirt, felt the softness, smelled the richness of the wet soil. We needed to get up close and personal with the rainstorm. This takes some of the mystery away, and it's good for kids to see that everything's OK, and for the most part, still the same, even after a loud, wet, long rainstorm. Wet and soggy and muddy, but OK.

Caterpillars aren't my favorite.

Once, I helped gut and skin a road-killed deer. (It was my first day on a new job, I couldn't say no!) I have buried animal carcasses in my yard just to dig them up months later and examine the bones. I've spent hours digging through the mud I've dredged up from stream bottoms, in search of crawdads, snails, insect exoskeletons, and other such treasures.

It does take a lot to gross me out. But there is one thing that creeps me out big-time, despite my best intentions. Caterpillars. Eew. The ugly truth is, I can't stand them. Unless they are behind glass or in some other confined space well away from me, it makes my skin crawl just to look at them.

So when L's school held a picnic in a park that was literally crawling with them, I nearly went out of my mind.

When it comes to being with kids in nature, I believe it's important to keep your own fears and negative attitudes out of the picture. Really, if you hate bugs or you can't stand being outdoors at night, your kids will definitely pick up on that and they will start to "adopt" that same attitude toward creatures.

Perhaps that's where I developed this aversion to caterpillars. My mother hated them. I have distinct memories of her, reacting with fear and panic when she came across an inchworm inching across my back one day when I was young. For years, I was terrified, and I do mean terrified of caterpillars of all kinds.

As a naturalist, I am a bit sheepish about admitting it, but this was a full-blown phobia I had for a while. I actually managed to work through this awful condition with hypnosis, but that's another story for another time.

So what was once a paralyzing phobia is now really only mild discomfort, so I can generally tolerate the presence of caterpillars without freaking out. And this takes some mental gymnastics. But I do OK. I prefer not to hold them or touch them, and when in the presence of them, I think mostly of the butterfly or moth they will become, and I do OK. And kids everywhere seem to love them. And that's really pretty cool. I get excited about that. So that helps me forget my discomfort a bit too.

Back to the school picnic. Glorious summer day. Dozens of kids frolicking on picnic blankets, eating ice cream, and dancing and playing in a wonderful park full of oak trees. We were having a great time, until I looked down and saw a few caterpillars crawling on the edge of a picnic blanket. Hmm. No biggie. Suddenly I realized that there were caterpillars all over the place. In the grass, on the tree trunks. On people's lunches.

Kids were picking them up, carrying them around. A cluster of kids had gathered around one little girl and when she turned to look at me she had a handful of them, they were crawling up and down her arms, on her shoulders. She was delighted!

Lucy approached me with one, curled up in her hand. "Look, mommy! A callerpiller! Do you want to hold it?" aw, crap.

So, while, yes, I firmly believe that I need to check my attitude and fear at the door, so to speak, so as not to taint my kids' experiences of nature and all manner of critters, I'm also a firm believer in honesty. 'Tis a fine line.

"Yep, honey, it sure is." Deep breath. "I don't want to hold it, caterpillars aren't my favorite. But thanks." She gently put it back on a tree, bless her sweet little heart. J followed her, and, with one tiny finger, stroked its back as it crawled up the tree trunk. They watched it together as I beat back the panic I was starting to feel.

I tried to focus on all these kids having such a great time, making friends with the caterpillars, naming them, organizing caterpillar races. They were so excited. It was great. There must have been thousands of caterpillars, and the many of the kids were just thrilled to be able to see them up close. (note: Nature geek that I am, I have since learned that these were Forest Tent Caterpillars, and this was a pretty typical infestation. It's likely there were actually several million of the darn thing in this particular park. I'm so glad I didn't know this at the time.)

A part of my brain was saying, "Get me out of here! They're everywhere!" And I was trying not to scream. And trying not to look like a complete freak, brushing off my back and feeling my hair to make sure I had none crawling on me. What I really wanted to do was grab my kids and run. Just get out of the park.

Luckily, it was almost time to leave anyway. I managed to very calmly herd J and L back to our pile of stuff, which I realized was probably crawling with caterpillars. (It was.) I shook out our blanket. I picked up our picnic bag. We made our way out of the park. We crossed the road, across which a few dozen caterpillars were scooting. L wanted to stop and watch. I let her, while I loaded up the car and strapped J in to the car seat. "There they go, Mommy, off to find some leaves to eat!" she said happily.

I was exhausted from the effort of holding it together. My skin was crawling. I wanted to appear calm, unfazed. Deep breaths. They don't need to know I'm freaking out. It's OK for them to know there are some things I'm not comfortable with. I just don't want them to feel so afraid, like I did. Like I do right now.

On the way home, I kept thinking of how scared I got as a kid that time my mom freaked out about a caterpillar. I really, really don't want my kids to feel that way about caterpillars, or anything in nature for that matter. At least, not unless they get to that place on their own. I had to keep it together. And, I did the best I could. I was bummed that I couldn't share their joy. I was disappointed that I couldn't play with the caterpillars with my kids.

But at least I didn't run screaming from the park. I didn't lose my head and completely freak out. And that's got to count for something. Sometimes, it's enough for me to appreciate that my kids can appreciate something.