The girls were playing outside this afternoon when suddenly Ellie started screaming (she gives new meaning to the expression "screaming bloody murder"). This is not altogether unusual or indicative of real trauma, so I was prepared to let it go until I heard Stephanie start screaming at the same decibel level. Not good. Still, I felt casual. I made my way to the back door, looking out in time to see our cat Camilla proudly running toward me with a chipmunk in her jaws. Ah ha.
I lovingly shepherded our tender-hearted girls through the door (cat and chipmunk stayed out, thank you very much) and tried to calm them down. They were completely beside themselves, hysterical with woe. After a few moments, Stephanie's screaming kicked up a notch and I saw her looking at a very bloody finger. What the? Now my stress gear kicks in.
While washing her finger and dialling our doctor, I managed to extract the story from our sobbing girls that Ellie saw the dying chipmunk and started screaming because she was so upset. Stephanie wanted to save the chipmunk, so she tried to take it from Camilla, at which point the chipmunk bit her savagely on her pinky finger. Poor mite.
Fortunately, our doctor believes nothing worse will come of it than the hard lesson not to touch wild animals, even to try to help them. I cleaned Stephanie's finger thoroughly and plopped her in front of The Muppets for distraction. Ellie resumed wailing for a while, saying she wanted to give away the kitties and get our canary and blue fish from Australia because "they never hurt anyone or anything!"
Poor little loves.
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