Bug incident

The other day we were at Ken and Cheri's church to attend a mom's Bible study that I've been attending for a couple of months. The moms (and any kids that want to be with their moms) sit at a table in the fellowship hall and the nursery is right next to where we meet. Usually the kids run around in the fellowship hall (and I mean that they run around and around and around, in circles around the tables) and come in and out of the nursery. Matthew sometimes joins in, but being more of an introvert, he often hangs out where there aren't a lot of kids (on my lap, when Abby isn't occupying it) or in the nursery when the other kids aren't occupying it). 

So he was in the nursery playing with Abby and 1 or 2 other kids when suddenly I heard him screaming and yelling and crying very seriously. I thought there was maybe a major injury because it sounded very serious. He came to the door of the nursery and walked over to me shaking to horribly that he hardly could walk. When he calmed down some (after a few minutes of just screaming) he muttered something about a bug on the slide. Hmmmm. So he apparently saw a bug that he was afraid--no afraid isn't sufficient--terrified of. I mean he was really terrified. I thought maybe it was one of those long, hairy, fast centipede things as I myself have been terrified of those before (never in front of the children though, so I don't know where his phobia came from). But he said it had some red on it. Hmmm.

He wouldn't let me put him down (he held his feet up when I tried to set him on the floor) and was still shaking after maybe 5 or 10 minutes. I knew that I had to do something or he would not go into the nursery for like a year or two. That kid has quite a memory and I knew such an incident with a bug would scar him for a considerable period of time. So I told he we were going to look for the bug. I thought we'd find nothing and I could assure him that it was gone. He clung to me. We walked into the nursery and I asked him to point out where he saw the bug. He pointed out the slide/climbing structure. I walked over to it and looked down. There was nothing. Hmmm. Then I saw it clinging to the interior wall of the climbing structure. A boxelder bug. Matthew confirmed it's identity as "THE BUG", then I leaned over, Matthew on one hip, and swatted it with my hand. Apparently it was only stunned by the hit as it fell to the floor but was still moving. So then I squashed it with my finger. My bare finger. I then grabbed a kleenex and wiped it up.

Wow, was I ever a hero. Matthew talked about my heroics all day, how I "killed the bug and it was dead". And I really did feel like a hero. Now Matthew can enter the nursery without fear (although Sam, Mr. Logical and Realistic, pointed out on the ride home that there could be other bugs...Be quiet, SAM!). The heroics of a mom.