Cacti are as Hot as a Stove

Little children are absolutely amazing.  Exploring the world with a curiosity that is often lost all too soon.  Being wonder and awe and details that often taken for granted by those older.  Experience is often the most effective teacher, like when a child touches a hot stove.  Making that mistake once is usually enough.  Today it was the case of the cactus biting with a fury. 

The warning was there, 'Children - Do Not Touch'.  She had been told, 'No Touching'.  And yet the synapses were not connecting well with the fingers.  As she watched me picking up, holding, looking and occasionally ever so gently touching the points of the cacti plants in Ayletts Nursery, she determined to give it a go herself by firmly squeezing the cactus plant over and over again.  Once should have sent the message between the finger and brain.  But then again, the synapses were not connecting.

A few moments later the reality set in.  She had managed to acquire lots of little hairlike cactus prickles.  They were now firmly lodged in her thumb and index finger.  First it was the look of awe, amazement, 'Daddy, look at my fingers'.  Later it was the tears as they were slowly pulled with tweezers from her tiny hand. 

We put some oinment on and a plaster over the thumb.  Within an hour the plaster was already off and she said it was better.  Sure.  All I can hope for is that this experience will not be for nought, that maybe next time she is told 'No Touching' it will fall on receptive ears and the synapses will connect.  Hopefully she will not touch a hot stove.