Jefflog

Oliver is the scared-y cat in the family. When he encounters something he’s afraid of, he’ll get a hold of my leg and put his head close to me. Or, if he happens to be seated at the table, he’ll try to get my arm and rest his head in my hand. Even though he seems to be quite interested in dogs and airplanes, he can get scared when he hears them and starts grabbing for my hand.

Maggie is fearless for the most part, but she shares one fear with Oliver: a fear of bugs. I don’t know if this is something innate or something we’ve instilled in her to keep her away from her earlier inclination to touch them, and subsequently put them in her mouth.

In any event, yesterday was a fairly warm day for November, so we headed to the neighbor’s playground setup, and we soon realized that there were a bunch of ladybugs buzzing about. Oliver would point them out when he spotted them (”Baaaah!”, he shouts), then cuddle up to me for protection.

I tried to convince Maggie that they were harmless by picking some of them up and letting her watch them crawl over my hand, but she wasn’t having any of that. At one point I asked what she was doing and she said,

“I’m stepping on the bugs because I don’t yike[sic] them.”

Hopefully when they get a little older they’ll learn to play with bugs just like I used to. There’s nothing like the smell of burning rollerbugs with the help of a magnifying glass.