Yesterday, we were enjoying a quiet morning. Jane was playing in the living room, I was in the study, Rebecca was upstairs with Peter, Gramama was in the kitchen, and Ron had just come in to see me. It was a nice lazy holiday morning.
Suddenly, the most piercing cry and shrieks of terror came from the living room. Jane was screaming her head off! I had never heard her scream like that!
I jumped up, dodging Ron, looking for Jane. She had run into the kitchen after Gramama. As I ran through where she had been, I couldn’t see anything amiss. I finally caught up to Jane, who was shaking in fear. I picked her up and started asking what was wrong.
“Bug” she sobbed, and clung to me, twisting to look where she had been, trying to make sure it wasn’t going to get her.
Apparently, some bug had scared her. I carried her into where she had been playing and asked her to show me where the bug was. She indicated a spot on the floor, and I looked around but didn’t see anything. I was expecting to see one of the spiders that show up every now and then. The big ones are maybe three quarters of an inch in diameter (including the legs), but I didn’t see anything.
“Which way did it go, Jane?”
“It went that way,” she pointed over towards the bench about 10 feet away, and then cried out again in fear when she saw it under the bench. “There, Daddy! It went under the bench!”
I set her down and went over to look for it, still expecting the smallish variety of bug.
“Oh my goodness!” The bug that had terrified my daughter was a 3 or 4 inch cockroach! I about jumped back myself! And now it was headed up the stair wall towards my wife and infant! Fortunately, I had a flip flop by the front door in easy reach.
One carefully aimed smack later, and the bug was history, and we could all breathe again.
I didn’t realize Ron had been following me, totally without fear, until at this point when he made a sound like, “Awww, yeah, daddy! You squashed bug!” bouncing a little with excitement. He was clearly delighted and entertained by the proceedings.
I then turned around to see what Gramama was laughing at. Jane was standing on top of some toys in the plastic toy bins. When I picked her up, she was still shaking a bit, but she quickly wanted down to play.
Later that afternoon, we were outside on the patio playing, and Ron came up to me, stomped his foot, and said something that sounded a lot like “I squashed bug!”
Here he is: