Busy Beeeees....

So this is what we did today. Woke up. LATE. Therefore getting to the gym.  LATE. Which led to me wearing my hair in a nappy fuzz ball instead of styling it and looking even half decent. Which always makes me feel gross and not well kept. And since that’s how I usually look- it’s an ongoing problem that is killing my morale. DEAD. And ALL I WANTED to do today was finish PAINTING Brighton’s room and the playroom. THAT’S ALL I had on my agenda. BUT then I had to deal with the storage units that we run as soon as I got home and have a “Let ME do it or YOU do it!!!” rif-raf with my darling husband that makes friends with every person he rents a unit to, and then feels some moral obligation to be NICE when they don’t PAY on time. (I obviously don’t have that problem. WHICH is why “I’M” supposed to be running it).

AND Starling had gobs of things on HIS list of things to do like WORK, which always frustrates me even though I do realize if he doesn’t WORK we won’t have money to EAT. So I bit my tongue and tried to NOT look disappointed that Starling’s deepest desires weren’t to have the house painted first thing today.

BUT THEN, the day livened up EVEN MORE. We found a bee hive behind our barn on Friday. HUGE massive amount of bees. Can you say, “My Girl?” There are TWO hives- both in Brighton’s favorite playing areas. So they have to go. Our friend Darren is a self-made Bee Man. So he showed up today to remove the bees. AND Starling suited up, too, so that they could box the bees. Darren made a box, a vacuum system to suck the bees into the box, a smoker, etc. and they hopped to it.  Well. There were more bees than they realized. By about a million or more.  And when Starling chain sawed into the column they were habituating, they were none too thrilled. At least fifty little honey bees committed suicide against Starling’s white bee suit. Bless them. They were just stuck to him by their stinger. And I thumped them off and they were dead. I’m allergic to bees so I made sure not to get stung while I was all up in the mix taking pictures with no suit and with my children. (HOME SCHOOL 101- NEVER miss a learning opportunity)!

At The Johnson Academy of Educational Excellence, we have no government regulation on our methods of teaching so we favor adventure and hands on experience over safety. I drug my kids out and made them watch Bee Extraction. I think mostly they learned, “STOP! Come back over HERE! STAY THERE! BEES will Kill you DEAD!” But they will have nice pictures to review the bee extraction process if ever they need that information. Like if we are lost in the woods about to starve to death and we HAPPEN to find a bee hive full of honey to survive on. (AND we HAPPEN to have BEE suits). Better than sticking them in front of the t.v. all day. Maybe not safer. BUT better.

Then 4:30 rolled around and the boys were STILL dealing with bees and sending me on errands to find more containers… lots and lots of honey cones. I had to take Brooklyn to dance at five. I fed her, dressed her, put her in the van and wouldn’t you know… my keys were in the ignition already turned for me. THANK YOU BRIGHTON! Unfortunately he had turned them WAAAY earlier and RUN my NEW battery down. AGAIN. (Yeah. He’s not even two yet).

This is a good time to tell you about me and my ability to deal with bumps in the road. I consider myself a relatively calm person so long as everything around me goes EXACTLY as planned. Any minute (pronounced my-nute) dissonance between game plan and reality? I’m not so calm. I go from calm to panic frenzy psycho crazy person in fractions of a second. So one minute I am on time for dance and I’m at peace with my life. Van won’t start? I’m Cruella De-Vil and the world is against me.

“BROOKLYN GET IN DADDY’s VAN!!!” ‘Still plenty of time to get to dance’. Trying to take deep breaths and calm myself down. ‘The worst thing that could happen is I might get Brookie there late. What are they going to do? Kick her out? And loose $58 bucks a month? Yeah. I’m highly doubting that. All I have to do is get Starling’s keys. We will be on our way. No big deal. Where are the keys? WHERE ARE THE KEYS!!!??? ‘

“STARLING!!! I can’t find your keys anywhere in the van or the house! I can’t find the SPARE!! Why are your keys LOOOOST???”

Starling, covered in bees, waddled to the house to help me look only to remember he had them on his way to leave when Darren arrived to save us from the bees. So they must be SOMEWHERE at the BARN. In other words? We will NEVER see his keys EVER AGAIN.  ‘We’ll NEVER get there! I could take a four-wheeler! Is that legal? WAIT! Stroke of genius.’

“WE HAVE TO JUMP ME OFF!!! Oh my CRAP we CAN’T because we can’t CRANK your van to put it by MY van to JUMP ME!!! It’s HOPEPLESS!!”

Starling, still covered with crawling bees, hands covered in honey, calm as a corpse, says, “Use Darren’s car.”

‘Great idea!’ I drove it to my van. ’Crap. Do I even know HOW to jump off a car? I’m sure it can’t be hard. I’ve watched Starling do it a hundred times.’ I popped the hoods and grabbed the cables. ‘Correction. I have sent Starling to jump off my van a hundred times. I have never WATCHED what he did. DANG IT! Why can’t I pay attention to ANYTHING!?  I just have to stick those clamps somewhere in the engine.’

“STARLING!!! WHERE do I STICK IT? Does it matter what color I stick first??”

‘This is taking TOO LONG! This is ridiculous! I’m going to beat Brighton for running down my battery and whack Starling for losing his keys at the barn and bang my head against the wall for not ANTICIPATING this situation and for not preparing to leave an hour in advance and double checking to make sure my car will crank’! (I know that is a GINORMOUS run-on sentence. When I’m having a nervous breakdown, I tend to think in run-on sentences).

“MOMMY I don’t WANNNA GO!” whines Brooklyn who was sulking BESIDE me and NOT buckled in the seat belt.

‘ERK!! She better WANT to go!! Does she think “I” want to drop everything I’m doing and TAKE her? She better appreciate the financial and time sacrifice we are making for HER to learn how to stretch her leg and tap in a circle! And she better get buckled before my head starts spinning and smoke starts seeping out my ears’. I got the van jumped off. I dashed inside to retrieve Boeing. He was happily cooing in a puddle of spit up. PANIC!! The mother in me screams ‘BATHE your BABY!’ The other mother, perhaps Mother B, screams, ‘LEAVE the kid and GET GONE!!” I listen to the latter.

“I’ll bathe you when I get back. Sorry!!” And off we went. Brighton was still crashed out on my bed taking an entirely too late nap. Amazingly I got Brooklyn to dance right as the dance teacher was closing the door. As Brooklyn would say, “Woo Hoo!” I rushed home, bathed Boeing, did a few other things and looked at the clock.

‘I’m LATE! Seriously? Did I learn nothing from 30 minutes ago?! I stress my OWN self out because I forget to remember to pay attention!’ I couldn’t find a check book anywhere to pay my soul to the dance people and this month they are requiring an additional $50 recital fee. SOUND OFF!! “You get paid $58 a month. NOW we have to PAY for our kid to be in the RECITAL? Well. Since we all have cash trees in our back yard. Solely for dance, here is $108 bucks. Did I mention I won’t be putting Brooklyn in dance next year?” (Actually, I might let her do dance at my friend’s church which only charges $25/month and no recital fee. And NO $150 for costumes. She is THREE! I didn’t pay that much for my PROM dress! Her “tumbling” class has taught her to roll over. NOT all that impressed. She taught Brighton everything she’s learned in 10 min. And he’s as good at turning flips as she is).

I was walking out the door when Brighton woke up and chased me down. So I grabbed him, stuffed him in the van, and left Boeing sleeping on my bed. Brooklyn was the last kid there, covered in a sticky sucker. I painfully handed over my cash, grabbed Brooklyn and stuffed her in the van next to Brighton. Brighton went hysterical. “LAY-LA!” Well, we usually pick up Brookie’s friend Layla from dance but she was in Picayune with her family so she wasn’t there. Apparently that devastated Brighton. He cried for her all the way home. AND he threw himself onto the ground when we got home and kept yelling, “Wan Lay-la! Marx! Howse!” I stepped over him and went inside where a lady sat holding Boeing. I tried talking to her and it became immediately obvious that she didn’t speak English. She had her daughter with her so I tried to ask her what her name was in Spanish. But I asked, “How are you? Or what’s up?” Heck I don’t know what I said. She started talking. I couldn’t understand anything she was saying and thought, ‘Wow… that’s a long name.”

Starling was in the kitchen with the husband talking honey. He had removed his bee get-up and Darren had left, but now instead of bees, he was covered in honey. Honey combs covered all available counter space. Awesome. I tasted some of the honey. Delicious. Tastes exactly like it does from Wal Mart. I would never go through that much work when I can buy it for $2 and it lasts until my great grand kids die, but I’m really glad that Starling and Darren got a chance to do it. It’s pretty cool to watch. Starling only got stung twice. I find honey ironic. People will throw out food if they see a fly land on it. YET, eat honey that is PUKED up from a bumble bug. Are flies and bees so different? Flies eat poop and bees eat pollen. I guess that’s the difference.

So Starling told the guy what we have left to sheet rock in the kitchen while the guy told him what house he wants Starling to find him. So they looked at houses on the MLS for an eternity while I tried to speak Spanish to his wife, failing miserably. And when THEY finished up, Starling left to go get some work done. At 7:30. On the bright side, he took Brighton with him. And I’m going to make us dinner. Mac n cheese. THEN I’M going to go finish painting at least ONE room! And tonight I’m praying that tomorrow is normal. And I finally got a picture of all three of my kids.