For the last few weeks, Audrey has been afraid of bugs in general, flies in particular. Every time she’d see one, she’d get agitated and shout at it, “Go ‘way, f’y!” (Her l’s are non-existent at this time. She doesn’t have r’s down yet either.)

But a couple of days ago we were in the car and she started absolutely screaming! “Bug!” she wailed. We found a bug on her arm and got it off her. We don’t know if it bit her, or if the up-close-and-personal contact was just too much for her, but since then she’s been terrified. Any time she sees a fly, in the house or outside, she starts crying her eyes out. If she thinks she feels a fly on her arm, she freaks.

We’ve tried to explain to her that flies won’t hurt her, that the worst thing that could happen is they’d tickle her skin (no, we’re not going into disgusting fly germs right now — we’re trying to make her less afraid of them at the moment). We’ve tried giving her coping methods like calmly telling the bothersome bug to go away or trying to squish it, but nothing’s working for the time being.

I hope this is just a phase.