The Bad Bees (note, post originally written 10/23/06)...We had a very traumatic day on Saturday. We took the kids to the little Halloween festival at the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center. They were dressed in full Batman and Robin regalia and looking quite cute.

The trick-or-treating consisted of a walk through the forest on a nature trail and stopping at various stations for a little give-away or ecology lesson. As we came up to one of the stations, there was quite a crowd of people, so we decided to bypass. Sean and Trevor were ahead and I was directly behind Hayden. He was about a foot or less off to the side of the main path and as if in slow motion I saw him step on a hive of bees that was nestled into the ground. All at once, I saw a swarm coming out of the hive for my sweet boy. I told him to run but he only made it about 10 feet before the stinging started and he had the instinctive 3-year old reaction of freezing. So I screamed for Sean and he handed Trevor off to me and took Hayden and made a run for it.

We got a little ways down the path and paused to try to knock off as many bees as we could. By some miracle, Sean and Trevor weren't stung at all. Hayden ended up with 6 stings and I had 2 of them. With as many bees as landed on us, I really can't believe we made it through so well. But I haven't had a bee sting in probably 10-20 years and had forgotten how much they hurt. It's like the pain of a bad shot, but over and over and over again for hours.

But the worst part was that while we were trying to make our way out of the forest through clumps of people scattered on this trail, I tried to alert the people running this event to the fact that there was an active beehive in the trail and it could be seriously dangerous. Do you know what the response was? "Well, that's just nature for you" So if there was some wild tiger in the middle of the trail that snatched my baby and ate it, would that be "just nature" and you'd continue sending other people down the trail without any warning. At least you might ask people if they are allergic to bees and advise them to skip the trail. I had bigger fish to fry trying to take care of my own kid, but I told no less than 3 people about the problem and none of them seemed concerned or interested in taking any action.

Dancing fool...Trevor has been getting busy with his crazy dance moves lately. He's pretty funny. I'm going to try to insert a link to some video: Trevor Shakes His Sillies Out. I especially like it when he feels inspired to spin until he's dizzy and then falls on the floor or runs into a wall. Then he immediately tries to get back up, without realizing he's still too dizzy to balance. Kind of like watching the dog chase his tail, quite amusing.

Happy Birthday Daddy (Sean)

The boys serenaded the camera for Daddy's Birthday

I'm so lucky to have Sean. Does he know how much I love him? He's so amazing in the way he takes care of us all. When I first met him, I don't think I ever would have imagined that he could be such a caring and loving husband and father. Watching him read to the boys or play with them on the living room floor just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. I'm lucky. I know it. I hope he knows that I know it.

The little scamp...Trevor has a new hobby. He likes to open and close all the dresser drawers in our room. That wouldn't be a problem in and of itself, except he likes to take something from one place and deposit it somewhere else. As if I wasn't forgetful enough, now I have the issue of somebody cleverly misplacing my stuff for me. Like the toothpaste. Would you think to look in your sock drawer if you couldn't find the toothpaste. Oh, and it isn't all good stuff either. How about taking the used diaper from the garbage can and depositing it in my t-shirt drawer. Hilarious! Really now, if he wasn't so darned cute...

Where have I been? I've been remiss in my blogging lately. Feels like I've been busy, but I'm not sure exactly what I've been busy doing. This weekend was a whirlwind. Took a customer and spouses to see the Blue Man Group on Friday. It was entertaining enough, but I was glad it didn't come out of my own pocket.

Saturday, we actually were invited to 3 separate parties. We actually declined party #3 (A parent-social for Hayden's new school) since I thought we'd be exhausted from #1 and #2.


First we went to see our pal Aidan Pro for his 3rd birthday. It was the nicest kind of gathering of family and friends and who can resist this charming red-head (and his lovely mom)?

Then we went to a pre-wedding party (not to be confused with a shower) for the soon-to-be wed couple Shelley and Brian. It was fun, although Sean was mortified to have to attend this couples-type of event and I only wish I had my camera ready when he heard them tell the boys and girls to divide up for a "battle of the sexes" type trivia game. Not exactly his cup of tea if you know Sean. Still, I think a good time was had by all and we can't wait till the Big Day in November when we head up to Kansas for the wedding. Sean is making Hayden practice carrying his plate to the kitchen in preparation for his ring bearer duties. Here is a little picture from party #2:

Sunday, we tried to head out to the pumpkin patch for some pictures in the Halloween costumes. But alas, the skies didn't cooperate, so we ended up driving over there and then driving back home. We did manage to have some fun at the house and Trevor rocked it up with a little hair goop. Here's my cutie pie:

Hobby or obsession? You've got to check out this picture of Hayden. I went to make sure he was snug in bed and found this scene. Could this possibly be comfortable to sleep with a baseball glove on your hand? And I must note that there's a ball in the glove and a bat laying on the other hand. The boy is a baseball nut. Period.

Now, since I promised earlier, here is a little preview of the Halloween outfits. I don't think Trevor will keep his mask on for more than two seconds at a time so maybe I should just draw one on his face with a Sharpie marker?

Drawing the line....Hmmm...Got an invitation to a work-related fishing trip today. Now, most everyone knows I despise these sort of things generally, but it goes with the job so I usually suck it up and pretend to enjoy myself (same as with the golf, boxing matches, etc.). But I've got to put my foot down on this one. The trip is Oct 29th - 31st. Uh, hello? Don't we acknowledge that this interferes with a major holiday? Seriously, I would rather miss Thanksgiving than miss out on seeing the munchkins dressed up to go trick-or-treating.

My senior year of high school, I worked at a fried chicken place. My job consisted of taking orders, packaging orders, ringing people up, making biscuits, scrubbing pots, pans, knives, floors. Your basic fast food nightmare. One day a year, they put a ton of coupons in the paper and we had people lined up out the door to buy cheap fried chicken. And they made us take turns dressing up in a big chicken suit standing in the middle of a busy intersection handing out coupons. I refused. There were a lot of degrading things I would do for $4/hour at the time, but I had to put my foot down somewhere and I wasn't going to put on the chicken suit.

I think I've reached that point with my job and these bizarre customer-entertainment outings. The fishing trip over Halloween is my new chicken suit. I'm just not gonna do it.