Fear...it's real

So in my Easter post I mentioned the digging in the backyard at my new house incident. I love digging in the dirt. You must understand this. I have cried when Mommy took me to the wrong park that has rubber ground instead of the one by our new house with a big sand box. Whenever we'd get to take a peak out our house before we bought it, I would go outside in the backyard and frolic in the red dirt of the unlandscaped variety. It's so much fun to just run your fingers through it and use a shovel and move it from the ground to the bucket and back. You get a delightful red tinge all over your clothes and as a bonus you keep some in your shoes. It's great!

Well as Mommy and Daddy were helping Uncle Christian with some home updates, I went out in the backyard to dig. I plopped myself in the forbidden "w-sit" and just began to muck around. Grandma showed up to show Grandpa the house in all it's concrete and tack glory and then to take Cara back home with her since Cara was trapped in her car seat or Mommy's arms due to the tack. Well as Mommy was handing over Cara, I came streaming in the back door saying "Scary" and pointing outside. I must have looked just upset enough because I didn't need to cry to get Mommy to come outside. Upon investigation, Mommy discovered that I had moved spots in the backyard and had started digging on top of an underground red ant colony. Near as I've been able to communicate to her, I was digging and they started crawling on my hands and all over the ground which freaked me out. So Mommy scooped me up and put me in the car with Grandma too. Well as she did that she discovered two ants stuck to my pants. They were seriously stuck and still alive very strange. So she pulled them off as best she could. This caused me to tense up and freak out just a bit, but she kissed me good bye and off I went with Grandma. This is where the drama began. When Grandma got me home, I started screaming and crying because I was petrified that I had ants on me. I made her take off all my clothes and then sponge me off in the sink because she couldn't put me down and then I wanted her to put new clothes on me and SOCKS AND SHOES. I am a big barefoot gal so very unusual. And then I just kept crying and wouldn't open my eyes and wanted to be held and kept my fist balled up. Grandma couldn't find an ant bite on me and eventually just called Mommy to help. Mommy came and was trying to distract me and touched my leg which caused me to panic and think I had ants on me all over again. Finally, Mommy just decided to give me Benadryl just in case there was an ant bite that we couldn't see. I curled up on the couch in the fetal position with Aunt Becca's towel wrapped around me and clenched in my fists with eyes shut as tight as could be for at least an hour. It took three almost four hours for the emotional aftermath to pass. Very traumatic.

And so now we know. I am terrified of bugs and not just ants. If I see a bug outside, I freeze at the door. I'll go into the backyard now but I'll stay on the concrete. I will not walk in the dirt. When we go outside, I point to the ants and say "look, bants" and smile but then run back inside. Spiders, flies, bees, anything that resembles a bug is not my friend. Mommy let me try and drown the ants in the backyard with the hose as therapy. I still won't walk in the dirt.

And now for something totally unrelated...pictures that I've been meaning to post because they were such fun. Aunt Becca went and got all pretty for her Preference Dance and while she was taking pictures with Aunt Angie, I talked Daddy in to putting me in a pretty dress too. Absolutely adorableness followed:





Those last two are Mommy's favorites...who can blame her?