Ant

Since she was little, Isa has been super afraid, often unnecessarily, of bugs. Any and all bugs would cause her into a fit of screams and panic. I remember once, a couple years ago, when the army of ants began (as it does every spring in our house), she was sitting on the toilet in the bathroom shortly after starting to use the toilet instead of the potty chair. We gave her the independence to "do it herself" for the most part, so while she was alone in the bathroom, we were doing other things in nearby rooms. Screams erupted. Panicked, terrified screams. And we rushed in to see what happened, assuming she fell into the bowl of the toilet or that she had somehow hurt herself. Instead, she was sitting, bare bottomed, on the toilet seat, hysterical about the ant crawling across the floor.

Teo, however, is the complete opposite. Bugs are things of interest. He loves to get nose to nose with them, down on his hands and knees, checking them out. Watching them. Over the weekend, we learned of a talent he has. As I watched him, giggling with glee, he crawled up to one of those pesky ants and *swoop* in an instant, pinched it between his fingers. I told him to throw it away and he did. Then, he got down on the floor and did it again. And again. He only became distressed once all the ants on the floor were squished in the trash and he spotted one on the ceiling. And the distress came from not being able to catch it.

From that point forward, we have encouraged him to catch and throw away all the ants (why not? It's a free ant-killing service) and he has joyfully obliged.

Then, on Monday morning, Isa was recalling the awesome way that Teo quickly caught the ants as she spotted one on the wall. Then, before I could respond, *swoop* Isa, my darling daughter who screamed like someone was cutting off her digits one by one when seeing a bug, had an ant pinched in her fingers. She threw it into the trash and a huge smile hijacked her face.

Now, think we can put them to work with the flies start to impose?