Our Giving Tree

No, this is not a new form of group time-out.

What are they looking at, you ask? What could be so interesting?

We were getting ready to go somewhere. We pried them away long enough to get their jackets on, and then they were back to putting their heads in the corner.

This is what they found so interesting. A ladybug.

She has a little friend on her shoulder.

Before opening presents of any kind this year, our kids have been able to enjoy a very special gift from our Christmas tree, the gift of ladybugs. I don’t know if any wrapped gift under the tree will be able to compare. Who needs an advent calendar when you can search the house each day and find a new ladybug? Eleanor likes to hold them when we find one, but then she quickly decides she wants it off of her. She doesn’t have the patience to ask me to help her get it off, and plucking it off with her other hand must be out of the question, because she usually just shakes her hand as hard and fast as she can. After several times, I have to tell her she can’t hold the ladybugs anymore if she does that. I just feet too bad for the poor little buggers.

Phaedra isn’t much better. As she musically squeals the word “Buuhhhh!” she jabs and pokes at it with her finger. She squeezes too hard when she tries to pick it up between her finger and thumb, and if we’re being honest, I have had to tell her to spit one out a time or two. After a few times finding a ladybug, Phaedra got comfortable with holding one in her hand and letting it crawl on her. Even when she holds one, she still pokes at it and squeezes it too tight. I try not to let too much torture happen while still letting the girls explore.

I can always tell when one of the girls comes across a ladybug on her own. It isn’t long before they are both crouching in one spot, and I occasionally hear Eleanor’s nervous voice admonishing Phaedra, “Gentle, gentle! Gentle, gentle!”

Each time we have found a ladybug, I let the girls watch it and play with it for a while before I explain to them that we need to let it go live outside where it can find food (and hopefully not freeze to death). The first morning after we brought the tree in and got it set up, as I released our first ladybug, I opened the front door to a scene reminiscent of Hitchcock’s The Birds. I hope all the birds weren’t there feasting on all the ladybugs that might have dropped off the tree as we brought it into the house the night before. I wished my ladybug luck as I flicked him off my hand to what I hope was not certain doom.

I hope our ladybugs make it, and I hope they can recover from their curious observers.