Bee Aggressive

On Monday, we went to Brookside Gardens to walk around and play in the many parks they have there. There is even a little train that takes a trip around the grounds that I purchased tickets for. We weren't able to go on it, however, and I'll tell you why shortly. Here's a view of a pond that we found on our walk. Jesse said to Hadley, "Hadley, look! It's a small, small pond! Just like in your book." Hadley looked at it and said, "I think that's a big, big pond, Daddy."

Here are the girls with their Daddy:

And here is a picture of Hadley minutes before she got stung by a bee for the first time:
As I post this, I'm trying to see if I can find the darn thing in the picture, but I can't. I took this picture, put the camera away, and then heard the terrible screaming a kid makes when she is hurt but doesn't understand what just happened. It's a completely different cry. When Hadley is running away from me and falls, or if she is doing something she isn't supposed to be doing and she hurts herself, she tries very hard not to cry. But this screaming and calling for me was complete fear, pain, and confusion. Hadley kept saying, "I didn't see it! I didn't see it!" As if she would've gotten out of its way had she seen the thing.

You might note from the picture that Hadley is up rather high on this playground equipment. Once I figured out what was going on, I darted for her, but could not figure out where to climb up. There was a slide, a fire poll that I do not have the strength to climb up, and a wobbly chain ladder. It wasn't until I circled this fort that I found some steps I could climb up. Keep in mind, Hadley is still screaming, and at this point a small crowd of toddlers and their mothers are closing in on the scene.

I manage to get to Hadley, who is frozen, holding her arm and screaming, "I got stung, Mama! I got stung!" This was no honey bee. This thing was huge and coming back for more (I know I am not a good judge of what is huge for a bee, but even Jesse said the bees at this park where large. So there you go.). I brushed it away a few times while trying to get Hadley to come down to the ground with me.

As we were climbing down, a little boy asked what happened. I said, "She got stung by a bee." Mothers and children looked at me in horror, and I, who apparently turned into Ranger Rick for a moment, calmly said, "It happens." I then scooped Hadley up and brought her to the car where Jesse had run to get the first aid kit.

After lots of screaming, we cleaned Hadley up and managed to settle her down by sharing our first time bee sting stories. I told her I was on something just like she was when a bee stung me. I told her I was playing with the zipper of my jacket and probably the bee had gotten stuck or something and that's why I got stung. I said I was at preschool so my teacher took care of the sting and I got to sit in her chair which I thought was pretty neat. Hadley asked Jesse about his first bee sting and he said, "Grandpa Feyen swatted a bee on my bare chest and it stung me. I was not happy."

So we now have the first bee sting under our belts. Thankfully, Hadley is not allergic to them.

Here are some videos of Happy Harper:




Did you not understand that? Well, here's another one:





Here's one last one of Harper in her duck (remember Hadley's was yellow?). The funniest part of the video is not on here, sadly. Hadley says, "Let's take a bath together!" And promptly rips off her clothes and tries to get in the duck with Harper. You can see part of it, but I turned the camera off too soon.