Bees

Sometimes we worry that we will never really figure Cayla out. It's been Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde around here since returning from our MI Thanksgiving break. She's had some really rough days at school (long trantrums over not being calendar helper during circle time, lashing out at other children, flying chairs, . . . .) and some wonderful days. Last Wednesday when I picked her up, her teacher told me that Cayla had had a WONDERFUL day - best ever. There was something about the inflection in her voice and shine in her eyes that told me that all days up until now had been wrought with problems. And Cayla had great days Thursday and Friday too. In fact, she made it through an entire circle time without having a "job" and was OK with it. Of course she spent the ENTIRE rest of the day proudly telling me that, "I had NO turn at circle time and I said OK!", but we'll take what we can get. She had another good day yesterday after some seizure activity earlier in the week. However, the good day ended the moment I picked her up. After a locker-banging fit and coat-flinging marathon we made it to the car to go and pick up Dalya. Her foul mood continued as we picked up Dayla, drove to Dalya's house, and walked up onto Dalya's porch. And then it happened - Cayla was stung by a bee. I have no idea what bee had business being alive in this cold, ice-covered city, but it was and it left a stinger in Cayla's hand. So, here I was carrying armloads of bags, 2 locked doors away from ice, toting 3 tired/hungry kids one of whom had just been stung by a bee. We rushed (OK, slowly waddled - Cayla was crying too hard to walk straight and Dayla and Collin were too concerned with Cayla to walk at all) down to Dalya's house. And then it happened - the pain of the sting (?), the novelty of being stung (?), the attention of the other kids (?) just washed away Cayla's grumpy mood. She proudly held up her ice pack and explained the entire ordeal to Flannery on the cell phone. She helped to set out lunch (one-handed of course) and showed Dalya the red dot where she had been stung. She played with Dalya's train set and told Collin that she was going to bring the dead bee into school to show all her friends (she also told him that she was only going to let the girls touch it, not the boys - not sure where that came from?!?!). Cayla, with wounded hand held high in the air did not whine/grump/cry once. I told Rachel that after feeling sorry for Cayla in the 5 minutes following the bee sting, I decided I may have to carry some bees around with me in the future.