Sting, Wasp. They're not just band names anymore.

Tom, Nicky and I got home this evening after they picked me up from work. Tom was tired and sore and just wanted to take a nap. I was tired and cranky about not getting the dinner I had been looking forward to for two days. (Yes I am that shallow sometimes.) Nicky was tired but happy to squirm down and run into the yard.

He didn't come when we called him to go inside and instead ran around the side of the yard. Tom was already inside, so I walked around to the side of the house calling Nicky to come. Before I could even see him I heard "Ow! Ouch! No!" And then met Nicky coming towards me. He had a grumpy face and was clutching his arm saying "Owie, Ouch!"

I looked and could see he'd been bitten or stung. Immediately I thought about snakes and spiders, but there was only one red spot, no blood and no dual puncture marks. I knew it could still be a spider or a sting though, so I asked Nicky what happened. He said "ladybug owie." Well, anything remotely bug-ish is a ladybug these days, so that didn't rule out anything.

I tried to get Nicky to come with me into the side yard to show me what bit him, but he just said "NO!" and did not want to go back over there. I called Tom and took Nicky inside to the kitchen. His arm was red and you could see the spot was puffy with a red center. It was a pretty big center too, not like a tiny bite.

Tom could tell right away it was a wasp sting. He got a cold pack from the freezer and I held that on it for a bit while Tom got the sting meds from the first aide kit. We put that on and a little bandaid and I kept the ice on it a bit. We gave him ibuprofen, but couldn't find any children's benadryl (we'll have to buy some).

Once Nicky was comfortable and playing in the living room I asked him if he wanted to come outside with me and show me what happened. He said no. He was totally NOT interested in going outside at all, which is unusual, so we can tell that sting really hurt him.

I went out to look for the culprit. And there, right under the electical box on the side of the house was a wasp nest covered in wasps. It was just about the height where Nicky could easily reach up and grab it. I'm sure he saw them, thought they were nice fun bugs, and reached for them. I'm so thankful he was only stung once! There were about 6 of them on the nest when I saw them and he could have been hurt much more.

I went inside and told Tom. He went out immediately and killed the nest with spray. So no more for now.

But the really surprising thing to us...Even thought Nicky was obviously upset that ladybugs turned on him and it definitely hurt a lot, he did not shed a single tear. No crying at all. He said it hurt, and "owie" a lot, but no real fuss. I think his biggest fuss was over having to take medicine, but even that wasn't bad since he actually likes the taste of that ibuprofen ok. I guess he's either got a really large pain tolerance, or he's just very stoic. Maybe both. It probably helped that Tom and I stayed calm during the whole thing, but still!

So Nicky's first big sting. Before this he'd only had mosquito bites. We watched him carefully for any reaction, but he's fine. We'll keep an eye on the site as well. I'm putting up a few movies now, and you can see he was doing just fine tonight as we put him to bed.