Worms

Callia might tell you otherwise (I'm not sure what she'd say), but if you asked me what I thought her favorite animal was, I'd tell you it was the worm. And yes, I do mean just the regular old earthworm. Today she was very tired, and we had what I would call an "incident" involving a worm. We were eating lunch outside after church, and Callia was doing her usual thing where she takes half the afternoon to eat her food. I had even stopped in the middle of my meal to nurse Thaddeus a little bit, and still I was done well before her. I went over to a flowerpot I was planning on planting some seeds in, and picked it up so I could empty last year's dirt from it. Covering the stale wet bricks (that hadn't seen the light of day since last fall) were millions of tiny ants. I called Nathan and Callia over to look at the spectacle. Callia noticed an earthworm in the middle of the mess of ants and said so as she was bending over. Then her little hand shot out and before I even realized what she was doing, she had it grasped between her thumb and index finger, and a few ants were crawling around on her wrist. It was disgusting mainly because of where the worm had come from. She has gotten herself bit by some nasty bugs she has picked up in the same area, and without even getting a good look at this worm I told her to put it down and shook it out of her hand. I felt a little bad once I realized it actually was a worm, but her reaction was so over the top. She was wailing as Nathan and I tried to soothe and distract her. We reminded her of the special movie time we were planning on having after lunch, and pointed out how delicious her apple sauce looked, etc. But she just kept wailing and thrashing as I tried to pick her up and set her in her seat. She stood there, with tears rolling down her cheeks, and wailed "But I just LOVE worms!!!!" Nathan and I couldn't help but laugh over her head where she couldn't see us. It was so ridiculous! She loves worms? On a serious note, we really need to start making this little girl take a nap. Here is a picture of her last November 17th, practically in heaven with 17 worms writhing in her hand. The reason I know how many there were is that she laid them out in a line on the table and counted them. You can see me in the background, six and a half months pregnant and working on the bricks, which is where all the worms were found.