Perk Me Up

"I'll take a grande, split shot, half 2%, half skinny, sugar-free vanilla latte with extra foam please."

This is what I want to yell in the barista's ear at Starbucks after the day I've had. Yes, I live in the Seattle area, and that, by proxy, makes me an expresso fiend, but you'd be surprised to know that I do not drink all that much coffee. Very little, in fact. Today though, I would gladly consume as much caffeine as is thrown in my direction.

At the risk of exposing everyone to a gigantic amount of diarrhea description, I'll hold off on those. I will state that it is hard to a) clean up diarrhea from a toddler with a garden hose at your friend's house and b) not fair that she will only allow mom to deal with her lower-end discomforts, thus letting dad off the proverbial poop hook.

I will tell you about the bees. Or should I say swarm, that found it not only necessary to attack me but dive-bomb my head as I tried to run them as far away as possible from my daughter and her friend.

I shall set the scene. It is a beautiful not too hot, not too cold day here in our corner of the world. After lunching on organic macaroni and cheese prepared by my good friend Michelle, we were enjoying picking blueberries and watching the girls (her daughter is the one with Katie at the beach in the "It's Just Sand" post) play on the playstructure in her large backyard.

We were attempting to wrap up the visit, and corral the girls up at the house when Michelle had to run inside to pay the carpet cleaners she had working for the day. I am left outside to play mediator at the slide end of the playstructure. Now, this is not such a hard task, and one that I am fully qualified for, but today, oh today would test all of my "keep it together" mommy skills.

Just as I am helping Laila take her turn down the slide, I move my head right in front of one of the many gaps where the plastic playground is put together. We all know what likes to live in those cubby holes and should take more care when coming so close to them, but I didn't even think about it. Immediately, I am met by 10 or so angry bees flying out of a golf ball sized nest to give me the "get outta our neighborhood now lady" speech, in bee language. In the form of a couple stings below my lower lip.

Trying to lure the attackers away from our semi-clad girls, I run to the middle of the yard swapping at my head and whacking at each flying torpedo that thinks I am it's target. I must've looked like the mom version of an American Pie sequel, at best. I am so thankful that the paparazzi wasn't hiding in the bushes taking my picture because had I been Britney Spears (and I am not saying that I would like to be her, quite the contrary), it would've been another case of "oops I did it again" and I'd be celebrity road kill.

I finally manage to charm those nasty bees into letting me close enough to the girls (who think I am pretty funny at this point, and I should remember my "bee dance" for future distractions) and I coax them away from the slide and the nest of doom. Michelle comes out of the house, completely unaware of the drama that just took place so I fill her in. "Is there a stinger?" I say as she examines my lip. We determine that there are a couple of swollen white bumps, but it doesn't hurt and I am now almost late to get home so Brett can take Wyatt to the dentist (again) and I can take McRae to taekwondo (with a swollen lip).

I was surprised that it didn't hurt more (I remember languishing in agony when I was stung by a bee as a child - begging my mom for more magic baking soda bee balm) and after a few hours, you could hardly tell that it had happened. I did not have time to stop at Starbucks, but I did find a frosty Diet Coke in the garage refrigerator while running out of the house on our way to taekwondo, and I loved every sip of it (while alternating drinking it and using it as a coldpack on my lip).