The Cactus

We have now had our first official run-in with a cactus. I guess that's inevitable when you live in Arizona. Molly had been playing in my parent's backyard for about 3 minutes when a heard horrible screaming. I went outside to rescue her from the hill and she was yelling "Mom!! Is it a hedgehog??!!" At first glance, she thought a hedgehog was stuck in her hand. After we cleared up that misunderstanding, we tried to get her calmed down so we could get to work getting it out. She had kicked it then tried to pull it out of her foot, so she had cactus in her foot and both hands. The whole ordeal took about an hour and a half, and culminated with Chris physically holding her down so I could pull the needles down. I had been holding her at first but she got too strong for me so Chris had to do it. If she knew any obscenities, there would have been streams of them coming out her mouth directed at Chris and I. As it was, she would mostly yell "Don't touch me! Don't come anywhere near me with that!!" etc., etc. Poor Claire was terrified at first so ran in the house. But after about 30 minutes, she pressed her nose up against the glass door and watched. After a minute she said through the door, "Good thing I didn't get any cactus stuck in me." What a nightmare!