It would be nice if he accorded this same empathy to his baby sister, Birdy, when he's seized with the impulse to, say, bap-bap her face with a balloon or spray her with the garden hose. Of course, a minute later, if Ben overhears us speaking sharply to Birdy — about a bitten-up bar of soap, say — he'll drop the hose and rush to her defense. "She probably thought it was a sandwich," he'll offer, lamely, on her behalf, and I will have to wrap my arm around his shoulders and pull him close, even while that poor soapy sister cries bubbles out her nose. It's not a straight road, compassion, but babies, like bugs, eventually prove themselves worthy of it. And Ben's heart just amazes me, the way it seems to swell and swell like — well, like his elbow on this day, the bee-sting day.

By now, that elbow is as hot and puffed as a popover. The sandwiches are made and wrapped, so we get ready to leave, take two. "Oooh," I say emphatically, on my way out to the car, "if I see that bee again — the one that stung you — I'm going to kill it!"

"Why?" Ben asks, in the reasonable-kid way that can take all the wind out of an adult's rhetorical sails. "I mean, it doesn't even have a stinger anymore." When I ask about this distinction, Ben shrugs. "It can't sting me again. So why would you kill it? If it's not dead already, then it probably really doesn't want to be dead."