Monday Memories...Not What it Looks like!

When Boy Wonder was 4 years old we lived in North Carolina. We were renting a very nice house in the suburbs. It had a big fenced-in back yard but of course, our son preferred to play in the front yard. 

Andy was something of an escape artist even at this tender age. He loved being outdoors and loved the mild climate. He especially loved playing in the drainage ditch in front of the house. He would pretend to build a fort and would protect me from "the bad guys" while dad was at work. Dad would often come home for lunch and would sometimes join in his games of imagination.

 One day as I opened the door to call them into lunch I noticed Mr. Wonderful had grabbed our son out of the ditch, was ripping off his jeans, and looked like he was giving him the beating of a lifetime. Boy Wonder was screaming and crying his lungs out and Mr. Wonderful's face was red and intense.

   "Oh my goodness," I thought. " What could have happened to make Mr. Wonderful spank our child in front of the whole neighborhood? Has Mr. Wonderful lost his mind?" Being the protective mother I am......I ran toward the street to rescue my boy from the wildly flinging hands of his dad. I was prepared to tackle my hubby to get Boy Wonder away from him.

 "Stop I" I screamed while I ran....."Stop hitting him". Mr. Wonderful was running toward me with the screaming child and basically threw him in my arms while he whipped off the dangling jeans. Boy Wonder had been sitting in a Fire Ant Bed and the fire ants had crawled up his pant legs and were stinging him. 

 Both my boys  Andy and Dad) got many stings...Boy Wonder stings were on his legs, Mr. Wonderful had stings on his arms and hands from trying to brush the ants off of him. 

 For those of you not familiar with fire ants. They are very small coopery colored ants. Fire ants inflict a fiery sting, which causes a small blister or pustule to form at the site of each sting after several hours. The blisters become itchy while healing and are prone to infection if broken. I learned a valuable lesson that day..... Things are not what they look like and even unreasonable acts may have a very logical explanation.