plastic cups and brave hearts

my brave, little inchworm whisperer last summer


Things I am thankful for today.

Tall, plastic, transparent cups and brave, little hearts.

My husband decided it was too warm in the bedroom last night. Ha, ha, not that; the actual temperature. So, he decided to open the two windows (our last two old windows) that have ill-fitted screens to let in some cool air. Someone else took that as an early invitation to come inside. Mud dauber wasps!

As I was dabbing some color on my sleepy face this morning I noticed a wasp right next to my shoe on the bathroom rug. I did a triple axle flip out of the bathroom and went to get the fly swatter. The wrong fly swatter was hanging up on the hook. It was a short, flimsy flyswatter, not my long I-don’t-have-to-get-too-close-or-see/hear-what-I-am-hitting-flyswatter. So I went for ‘Plan B’...gently lower a tall, plastic, transparent cup on top of it and let my husband feel brave for rescuing his damsel in distress when he got home from work.

I have to do these things quickly or I psych myself out. Having a creative imagination is great in so many other areas of my life but not this one. Multiple scenarios flash through my brain as I contemplate what could go wrong. What happens if… and another one flies by as I….the cup falls over and I!

I hesitated and bailed.
Great!
Now what?

My oldest left for college already, and my seven-year-old looked leery. I asked him to just set the cup on top of the wasp. He walked in and did the same thing I did; hesitated and bailed.

He is so much like me. Why now?

I sweetly looked at my five-year-old, yes, my Five-Year-Old. I gave him a confident, “You can do it! It is quick and easy!” And he did. My little hero! He beamed and was so proud of himself.

**Important Information: we had these same wasps last year, and the exterminator said, since they were just hatched they wouldn’t fly for a day or so and that they weren’t aggressive at all. Otherwise, my children would not even be close to them. But, you can’t convince that little girl inside me that got chased by her brothers with all sorts of things growing up. **

The boys studied Mr. Wasp safely through the plastic cup. Since I home school, I, of course, turned it into a min-lesson. I ignored the feeling of a twitch starting to form near my right eye and refrained from flinching wildly if something appeared to fly by me.

My husband came home from a long day of work and I told him about the wasp under the cup and that there might be others in the bedroom which I kept closed the entire day.

He won the battle against four wasps and apologized for opening the ill fitted windows. He also sprayed the area outside of our windows.

He is my hero too!