One of Maxi's favorite things to do is tell you what the animals say. When he was just about 1-year-old, he started imitating our dog panting, and the meows of our cats. Since then he has acquired many more animal and bug sounds, and loves to identify the different creatures in his books and on his shelves. Because he loves animals so much, I never guessed his reaction when encountering the real thing.
On our walks with Asia, Max started identifying the various bugs he saw, ants on the sidewalks, butterflies in the fields, snails in the path etc. On this particular walk he saw bees buzzing amongst the flowers. He stopped to look at them, and knowing his curiosity, I told him to be careful, not to bother the bees, because bees sting and stings hurt.
Shortly after we reached the field and started to walk down the path, Max let out a shriek and started crying. I rushed over to him thinking he had been hurt, and in sobs he said "bumble-bee," and put his arms up saying "up-up". I picked him up, and wiped away the tears, after which he immediately stopped crying, so I knew he wasn't seriously hurt. I started to set him back down on the path, which resulted in more crying and shrieking. Paul and I both tried to convince him to walk on his own, explaining that there were no bumble-bees, only flies, but he refused to walk, backing up against me crying and screaming"UP-UP." Once we were safely off the path he piped up "Bye-bye bumble-bee," as if nothing had happened.
A couple days later, Max got something in his eye, and started sobbing "bumble-bee" which leads me to believe that the day we were in the field, Max was reacting to a fly that flew into his eye.
About a week after that, Max woke up with a piercing shriek. Paul rushed into his room, where Max was sobbing "bumble-bee." Paul had to shake out all his blankets and his pillow to show Max that there were no bumble-bees in his bed. My poor baby had a nightmare.
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