IU Homecoming

We all had an early start on the Saturday morning of Homecoming - Chris and I needed to leave for the stadium around 6:30am. Anna ended up waking up just before we left and bleary-eyed Aunt Blaire and Chris took over as we left. It's usually hard to pull Anna off of me first thing in the morning, but she ended up staying in Blaire's arms without a fight. Go Blaire! Anna really loves and trusts you!

Anna, Blaire, and Chris caught up with us after morning rehearsal at "The Walk", a pre-game event where the football team walks toward the stadium while the Marching Hundred plays a short concert. We were so very excited to see how Anna would react to her very first in-person encounter with the Marching Hundred. She has seen several videos on YouTube (and asks to watch them from time to time!) and we were so happy to get her up close. We were VERY close, in fact - brushing shoulders with the trumpets.

She didn't get all bubbly and excited, she just kind of watched intently and absorbed what she was seeing. I'm learning that that's what she does when she is really fascinated by something. I remember the same intent look on her face when she was in the DinoSphere at the Children's Museum, just full-on focus, taking everything in.

After a while she said "I don't like the Marching Hundred" and we were SO crestfallen! Fortunately in future conversations, we would find that she really did like seeing them, it was just probably getting a little too loud for her and she didn't quite have the words to let us know. In any event, we took her for a walk through Assembly Hall to the Jennison Fieldhouse, where the other alumni were gathering to eat a boxed lunch and get ready for the game. I got to show her off to some of my old friends (always fun) and then Blaire and (my) Chris took her for a lap around the fieldhouse track, topped off with some fun flopping around on the soft mats in the pole vault pit. She had a quick snack and was getting kind of antsy by the time the alumni band was lining up to march to the stadium. We were debating whether to bring her with us for a bit when she made her intentions clear - "I wanna go to my red car!" Love it when she's 100% clear like that. We hugged and kissed our goodbyes, then Blaire and Chris took her back for lunch and a nap while we headed to the game.

Chris and I decided we'd had enough by the end of the third quarter and cut out a little early. When we got back to Blaire and Chris' houses (their houses are right next door to each other), Anna was still napping. My Dad had come down to visit so we all kicked back until she woke up. She was pretty sunshiny and ended up laughing her head off every time Loki (Blaire's dog) put his front paws up on the windowsill, the kitchen counter, anything. It was caught on tape and if you're Facebook friends with Chris you can check out the video.

Dad and Amy had graciously offered to have Anna sleep at their house that night so that we could do what we wanted in Bloomington. I kind of agonized over the decision, but in hindsight, that was the right call, without a doubt. Besides the evening freedom, it gave us an opportunity for a good night's sleep just before a TON of driving the next day. I was nervous about how Anna would take it. I explained it to her and she seemed fine, but I wasn't sure she totally understood. I fed her a snack, switched the car seat to Dad's car, packed up her bags, and buckled her in. She was TOTALLY FINE. In fact, she was pretty happy about the whole thing! She smiled and waved to me as she and Dad were pulling away, which brought me back to that parental emotional cocktail of pride tinged with grief. I was so proud that she was able to feel secure with her grandparents and happily go for a trip without us, but also kind of heartbroken that the little girl who used to only feel secure in our arms no longer exists. I walked back into the house with tears in my eyes, but it wasn't long before the pride took over and I was so happy to know that she's really on her way to being the smart, secure, independent person we're trying to help her become.

By all accounts, she had a ball at Grandpa Larry and Grammy Amy's, including a bath where she did NOT protest her hair washing. This is a feat I have not been able to pull off in recent history, and I have still not been able to replicate his success, even when trying the same technique he described to me. Grandpa magic, I guess! We had fun too. Some old friends came over to hang out and we laughed long and hard - loud enough to definitely wake up a two-year-old. We were glad we could just laugh and relax without having to shush ourselves.

After a laid-back morning in Bloomington, we made it up to Grandpa and Grammy's just after noon. Shortly after we arrived, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Tim joined us to help break in Dad and Amy's awesome new house. We had great weather, grilled burgers and brats, and just had a nice time hanging out. We postponed Anna's nap so that she would sleep in the car. We were shooting for a 3pm departure, but it was more like 4pm, which is pretty close to par for family gatherings - just kinda hard to leave!

Anna passed out almost immediately, which was exactly what we were hoping for. I should point out that we were in separate cars at this point because... well, Chris had some meetings and I won't go into boring details, but it ended up that we had both cars in Indiana. Anna was with me. Things went really well for the first leg of the trip. We somehow made it across the Michigan border without having to stop at all. Anna woke up twice crying but then quickly passed back out. I would have loved to have kept going all the way home, but we were low on gas and needed food. Chris kept going while we stopped about a dozen miles past the border at a Wendy's.

Anna was pretty golden in Wendy's. She was cooperative in the bathroom and cute & endearing towards the girls at the counter. She ate a good supper in the car - chicken nuggets, mandarin oranges, and peas - and was content to get back on the road.

Here is where things went really wrong. Not with Anna, but with me. The sun had gone down while we were in Wendy's and I was worried about Anna's ability to stay content without the aid of her many books. I decided to talk to her as much as possible. As we were getting back on the road, I was starting into a detailed recounting of everything that had happened that weekend. I was so focused that I didn't pay enough attention to...

...which...

...way...

...to DRIVE.

Oh yeah. I ended up going the WRONG WAY on the highway. That in itself is sad, but what is just many, many times sadder is the fact that it took me a solid TWENTY MINUTES to realize what I had done. By that time we had returned to Indiana without me even noticing.

OMG WHO DOES THAT.

I was so frustrated with myself and kind of freaking out when I called Chris to tell him what had happened. Fortunately, he had the cooler head and said all the right things. Stay calm, turn around when you can, and just stay focused on the task at hand. Don't get mad at yourself; it's really okay. Now, there were lots of reasons that this was NOT okay, but I was so glad he said those things. It really did keep me calm and helped me get home as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, because it took several more miles of driving before we could get turned back around, we arrived home nearly an hour later than we would have if I had driven the right way. Anna and I both got to bed late and started the week with droopy eyelids, but we made it safely and without a toddler meltdown, which is pretty impressive considering that she spent about 5 solid hours in the car.

Thus ended a very full and very fun Homecoming weekend!

When Bees Attack

Here's how the crazy bee attack went down:

Anna and I were playing in the backyard with Leila after we got home from work/daycare. Normal fun time, swings, slide, etc. Then Anna wanted me to get the pooper scooper and hunt down some poop. Yeah, she thinks that's a pretty good time - her finding poop, me scooping it up, her watching and commenting, "That's Leila's poop! It's stinky." The pooper scooper was leaning against the deck so we headed that direction.

As I was prepping the scooper, I noticed Leila skittering by me in a very strange way - tail between her legs, very scared and submissive. And she had these weird little yellow dots on her. It occurred to me that they were bees and at that moment I should have quickly shuttled all three of us into the house, but the brain is really slow to recognize serious danger in a context where you're just not expecting it at all. I tried momentarily to shoo them off of Leila before glancing over at Anna, who was curiously observing the dozen or so bees swarming around her and landing on her jacket. OMG FIRE HOT RED ALERT TIME.

I scooped up Anna, sprinted up the steps, pounded on the sliding door, yelled at Chris that we were being attacked by bees, and then... well, honestly it's a little hazy because I was in total panic mode. Interesting how panic makes you drop little bits of memory... anyway, we all somehow ended up inside (quite a feat since Leila didn't want to come in), but there were still bees around us in the house and probably a dozen or so still stuck on poor Leila, who had already been stung several times. Anna crying because she's scared, all of us freaking all the way out.

Then Anna screeches in pain and holds up her hand with a bee firmly attached and stinging. I screech myself and slap her poor hand hard to get the bee off, then grab her and sprint upstairs to our first aid stuff. Leila tried to follow us up there, which is the LAST thing we wanted with her covered in bees. Poor Leila - the vet said that when animals are stung with their people nearby, they think the people are hurting them! So she already thinks we're torturing her and she's slinking upstairs with me to go away for her punishment. We are SCREAMING at her to go downstairs but poor thing, she just couldn't understand. I had to almost kick her down the stairs and shut the gate to keep her from reaching our bedroom.

At that point we split up. I took Anna into the bathroom and Chris took Leila out front to get de-beed. Chris said they were all burrowing under her fur on their way to her skin. He even found one in her ear, ugh! Once Anna and I were in the bathroom I swatted one bee that followed us upstairs and stomped it into the carpet. Then I found another one BURROWING IN THE BACK OF MY HAIR and swatted at it wildly until it flew out. It started buzzing around the light fixture so I grabbed the bandaids, first aid cream, and children's tylenol and took Anna into our bedroom, shutting that horrid bee in our bathroom. I calmed her down, let her open her Dora bandaid (one of her favorite things to do), and gave her a dose of Tylenol. She settled down and we just waited up there for Chris to come back.

When I heard him come in I walked out to the landing that looks over the living room and noticed a half dozen bees up in the front semi-circle window. He was in the process of killing the ones left in the house with the only spray we had, which was an outdoor nest-killing spray for wasps and hornets, powerful stuff. Once they were all dead he came up so we could regroup and give each other holy-$#%@-did-that-just-happen looks. We inspected Anna's sting to make sure the stinger wasn't still in, then decided to look outside and see if we could figure out where they were coming from. It took about two seconds for us to spot a hole at the base of our deck still swarming with bees. Yellow jacket ground bees, mean mothers. http://bit.ly/9gnES9

Once the coast was totally clear, Anna and I went downstairs to eat supper while Chris went to buy a full can of nest-killing bee/wasp spray. He emptied the whole can into both holes - hope that did the trick.

I was really nervous about the amount of strong pesticide in the house so after supper I went into cleanup mode. Took down the curtains in the front window and the back sliding door, which was also sprayed. Then I went to work with a big bucket of dishwater and wiped down every single surface that might have even possibly been sprayed. We kept the windows open all night (even though it was cold) to help everything air out. Quite an undertaking, but very necessary. We had no choice but to spray it in order to kill those aggressive bees, but man, is it nasty stuff.

Poor Leila really got the worst of it - several stings and the scare of her life. She cowered, shaking under the table for a little while before I coaxed her out for some treats and snuggles. Anna would periodically cry as her sting would start hurting again, but she absolutely refused to let us ice it.

So that's the story. Everything is back to normal now, though we are keeping a very close eye on that hole for any signs of life. Fingers crossed that we never have another awful bee incident like this ever again!