Holy Hornets!

So, as promised...here is why Evie was holding her arm in the pics from the previous post.

We were given the option of scenery for Liam's photos. Woodsy/barnsy or downtown walls. Having never done pictures downtown before, we chose the latter. You'd think the more rural option would pose more of a hazard with wildlife and bugs. Not in South Georgia. That evening at 6:30pm, it was still a balmy 95 degrees. And of course, the gnats (and other critters) were out in full force.

We pulled up behind some downtown businesses for Liam's first pictures. Kim (the photographer) has a great eye for backdrops. She set up quickly and started snapping shots of Liam. The excitement flowed. Behind this building was a staircase that led to a dropped-down patio that the older two couldn't resist a climb down. When Evie came up to me a few minutes later, tugging on my pants leg, I could only fend her off for so long before I had to acknowledge her attempts to grab my attention.

With tears welling up in her eyes, she was trying to tell me her arm hurt. But she didn't know why. Finally seeing the tiny red dot I instinctively knew she'd been stung...by a bee. Not wanting to stop the shoot (you only get so long with a one year old before they become completely unravelled), I told Ryan and Kim to keep going as I ran off toward the car. Kim had generously offered to let us steal some ice out of the cup in her car. Thank goodness, because I had nothing to thwart the pain.

Evie and I sat in the car, me holding a cube of frozen water to her arm, for a few minute before the ice cube moved and I saw another, much larger, red dot. My poor baby had been stung twice! She didn't quite know what to think of all this pain and what had just happened to her. She begged me to tell her teacher when she returned to school Monday. She told me she didn't want this to happen to any of her friends...they might not know this could happen to them too! I was frantically searching the Internet on my phone, trying to find a quick fix that would get rid of all her pain...something I might have in my Mommy mobile. But I soon found the ice was my best, and only, option.

Once her forearm was thoroughly numb, we emerged from the car and went back to see how things were going. In our absence, Ryan had looked down the stairs and saw it...a big, nasty nest with 4 wasps lingering close by.

Wasps! Not only was she stung by a bee...it was a wasp! I quickly remembered how, when Evie was just a baby, I was stung by a wasp. It hurt! Bad! And Ryan was all too kind enough to tell me how much better Evie had handle twice the amount of pain I had experienced.

We stayed a little longer behind that downtown building (far away from that staircase) and then drove over to Albany's very first brick house for a change of scenery. Wanting to get a couple pictures of the kids together to make the most of the shoot, we gathered them along the white picket fence. By this point, the thought of being a supermodel for a few moments was no longer appealing to Evie. The promise of a new toy and ice cream could only do so much. She did her best to throw on a smile, and even uncovered her new boo boo for a couple snaps. But it hurt. And she was done. She was tired and we didn't have the heart to push her any harder.

After Liam quite quickly gobbled down his tasty cupcake, we called it a day. Evie had been so brave and really had handled the ugly situation much better than Mommy ever could have. We went off to eat dinner and then went and got our princess a new toy and a cup of Watermelon Taffy ice cream and marshmallows (not as good as it sounds!). And I must say, I think it did the trick.

As much as it broke our heart to see her cry while trying to be such a big girl, and as much as I wish she'd never had to go through that...when we look at those photos, we'll always have a story to tell.