Mad as a...Cicada?

Last weekend, I had one of those Mother of the Year days with Pi. We went to the coffee shop ("Mommy cuppa COF-fee!") and then to the bakery where we shared a blueberry scone at one of their little cafe tables and watched the people and their doggies go by the window. Then we took a bit of a longer walk to a very cool and fun park that we don't usually frequent. This park is pretty rockin' - they have a separate toddler play structure that sits in the center of a sand pit, and then they have a mega-gym for bigger kids. Pi went right for the sand pit, where some large winged bugs were flying around. There were about thirty of them.

"Oh, look at the cicadas, Pi", I said as he merrily chased them about and crouched low to get a really good look at them when they hovered in the air near his face. "Wow, there really are a lot of cicadas here, aren't there - I wonder why there are so many!"

"KAY-das! KAY-das!" he crowed.

Then one of them landed on the slide and I checked it out.

"Uh, Pi, let's not play over here, OK, these bugs are actually gigantic freaking HORNETS, and they could really hurt you. These are dangerous bugs."

"Kayda HOR-nets! Kayda HOR-nets!"

"Yes, let's just leave them to their partying and go swing for a while."

I allowed my child to frolic amongst gigantic hornets. Mother of the Year, indeed.