Boys and Bugs

Jacob has always loved playing in the dirt and getting dirty. But much to my dismay and despite my efforts to make him afraid, he has become very fascinated with bugs. He is VERY curious about them. He calls them "ew, stinkies"(because whenever I see a bug I yell, "ew, ew, ew", which converts to "ew, stinkies" in Jacobland), but he thinks they are pretty cool. More particularly, he likes to squish them. We currently don't have any play equipment in our back yard, but that doesn't matter to Jacob because it's got lots of dirt and bugs. There are lots of tiny ant piles in the yard that house teeny tiny little ants. At first I freaked out when I found him playing in an ant pile, but then I realized that these ants run and hide in fear (as would I if a giant 3 year old sat on my house). So, fortunately he does not come in covered in ants every day. But he loves to watch them and pick them up and then squish them.

Here he is trying to get a closer look at some bugs.

Whenever he sees a bug in the house he says "ew stinkies, a wipe!" Which translates as, "Mom, there is a bug, I need something to get it with", because he saw me get a spider once with a paper towel, aka, wipe. Today he came up to me and tells me, "ew stinkies". So I go check it out and sure enough, there is a smallish spider climbing on the wall, and just as I am about to go get something to smash it with, SPLAT! He smashes it with his hand and says, "WHAP, got it!" (got that one from his dad). Okay, I guess that works. So I go get a tissue to clean it up with and when I get back to the the scene of crime, there he is rolling the body of the spider between his finger. I about gagged and proceeded to scream in my high pitched, panic voice, "EW!!! PUT IT DOWN, DON'T TOUCH IT! GROSS!!!!". (Part of my efforts to make him afraid, which obviously hasn't been working.)

Later he walks over too me and tries to hand me a dead fly, which resulted in the same panicked reaction from me. Can't wait for him to discover reptiles. Eeesh.