The bees

It dawned on me today that I never told the story of Charlotte and the bees here on the 'ol blog. I've gotten to be such a bad blogger, not really capturing the "every day" - even though this incident isn't really the "every day".

A little background: I have a friend, Bri. Bri has 3 kiddos - Clara (5), Lucy(2), and James (baby). Clara and Charlotte play very nicely together. Max thinks Lucy hung the moon. So, we switch up the kids every now and then. I take Clara and Bri takes Max or vice versa. It works out well for us.

One day in July, Bri and I swapped kids. I took Clara for the morning and Bri took Max. (This is secretly my favorite swap because the girls just go off and play and I enjoy surfing the web) Around lunch time I brought Clara back to Bri's house. We went in and I talked to Bri for a while - finding out how much trouble Max was. They had a friend staying with them. The friend had a dog. The girls wanted to go outside and throw the ball to the dog in the front yard, so we all went outside. Max, Lucy, Charlotte, Clara, Me, and Bri - holding 3 month old James.

The dog chased the ball into a wooded section of the front lawn. It came out and kinda scooted it's rear end on the grass quickly. I didn't really think anything of it, but remember thinking the dog acted like something bit it's bottom. The girls followed the dog into the wooded area.

Then, I heard the scream. Clara was frozen in the wooded area, just screaming. My immediate thought was she stepped through a spider web or something. Charlotte was on the other side of the wooded area and she immediately froze and started screaming. I ran to her as Bri (holding James) ran to Clara. Lucy and Max are just running around.

Then, I see them. Bees EVERYWHERE. I pull Charlotte out of the wooded section and see she is covered in bees - head to toe. There are at least 40 just on her back. I'm brushing them off of her as fast as I can, but they just keep swarming us. Max is standing beside me screaming, Charlotte is screaming. I see Bri run inside with Clara and Lucy. Luckily her husband is working from home that day. He comes out and takes James and closes the baby in a back bedroom. The bees are following us inside, they are everywhere. Bri's husband is trying to kill them with fly swatters, the girls are screaming, Max is screaming, Lucy is crying, we don't know what to do. Finally it seems all of the bees are off of us, but there are still some flying around downstairs in their house. I take the girls and Max upstairs to Clara's room. I'm trying to calm them down - they are shaking.

I get Charlotte undressed. A bee flies out of her pants! They start screaming again. I step on the bee. We count stings. 13 on Charlotte - 18 or 19 on Clara - 2 on me - 0 on the rest. Thankfully the little kids and the baby weren't stung at all. Bri and I are looking the girls over making sure to get all of the stingers out.

Finally we feel like everyone is calm enough for us to leave. I carry Charlotte out to the car and then come back and get Max.

I ended up taking Charlotte to the doctor that afternoon just to make sure everything was OK. The only sting site that ended up swelling was the one on her eye lid. Her poor little eye was all swollen the next couple of days. The sting sites itched quite a bit the next day.

Hands down the scariest moment with the kids I've had so far. I had no idea that I had been stung until the adrenaline wore off. It really is true that when it comes down to it, you will throw yourself in front of anything for your kids. (Not that bees are really that bad, it's not like it was a burning building or anything) But, I learned that day that I would have laid on that hive, or attracted all of the bees to me if I had known how to do that. No questions asked.

Charlotte and Clara kinda laugh about it now when they talk about it. Bri and I call them the "Bee Sisters". But put a bee within a half mile of Charlotte and you'll hear her scream.