This morning while in the kitchen, I heard bloodcurdling screams coming from the back deck. Looking outside, I realized that they were coming from Barak, our child who rarely gets vocal about pain. But sure enough, there he is, screaming like crazy and waving his arms and legs around like … well I don’t know like what. But it was impressive.

My first thought was that he must’ve been stung, and sure enough, that was it. Once on his arm and once on each leg – whopper stings that looked like they drew blood.

I ran out in the yard to get some plantain and dashed back, chewing as I went. I didn’t realize how many times he’d been stung, and I had to send Siah out for some more. Once I put the chewed up plantain on the stings, it was obvious the pain started to lessen, but he already had pretty impressive swelling. Within a couple hours, there were just little red bumps at the sting spots. Yay for plantain.

And yes, we had a little chat about the fact that flailing one’s arms and legs like a wild thing when one has been stung by something is generally not to one’s advantage. 🙂