Bees-day blues

08.10.06

You might know by now that I really struggle with some of the fantasies involved in providing my girl with the traditional idyllic childhood, so why should birthdays be any different?  I’m thinking we can make the whole birthday thing heinous so she’ll refuse to have them, and then she’ll stay a little girl forever.  That’s how it works, right?

 

We all grew up with our birthday traditions – food, family, friends, presents, and the much beloved “Happy Birthday to You” sung completely off key like a chorus of dying beluga whales, then make a wish, blow out the candles, and we all have cake and ice cream.  Sounds about right, doesn’t it?

 

We planned a nice, quiet, low-key birthday party in the park.  The day was beautiful.  It was sunny, but not too hot.  My car rocked gently in the breeze on the drive there… well, okay, “breeze” is a romantic description, but I think a little wind adds a bit of whimsical ambiance to a day at the park.

 

My husband was charged with picking up the cake, god love him, and he kind of sort of dropped it a little bit getting out of the car.  In the moment I took this as a personal affront and a catastrophic event.   I had a niggling suspicion the day was forever to be tagged, “The year Daddy dropped your Nemo cake.”  As in, “Remember your third birthday?  Daddy dropped your Nemo cake,” but it turned out to be just a tiny glitch in light of the horrors to come.   

 

I noticed a few bees around but forgot them as soon as guests started arriving. 

 

Food time.  I walk over to the food table and there was something going on with the fruit.  I took a closer look.  Whoa, I thought, hornets really love fruit.  About 15 of the little buggers had their ugly bodies beneath the plastic wrap and were having a party of their own in the fruit bowl.  Deep breath.  Ok, forget about the fruit.  Move it away from the party, uncover it, and leave it as bait.

 

All-righty then.  We’ll cut the cake.  At this point it occurs to me that the park is swarming with big nasty hornets.  I look at my husband, who’d been all for skipping the park in the first place and having the party at our house, and say, “I’m going to cut the cake.  Your job is to fend off the uninvited guests.”

 

Now, don’t forget the gentle “breeze” that rocked my car. 

 

So I’m fending off hornets, cutting cake, and trying to place them right side up on paper plates that the wind is trying to blow away.  My husband is fending off hornets, scooping melted ice cream onto plates that are blowing away.

 

Apparently hornets love cake and ice cream even more than they love fruit because I was getting dive-bombed.  Somehow the kids get parked at the food table.  I’m standing there holding cake with two hands looking for a plate while the black and yellow bleepity-bleeps keep trying to land on the cake which is getting massacred by my clumsy hornet-swatting-cake-cutting maneuvers.  My husband has his back to me handing a plate to someone.  I feel irritable.  I yell, “You are NOT doing your JOB here.” 

 

Finally I’ve had enough and I sort of lose it.  “Please get the KIDS under the pavilion AWAY from the FOOD.”

 

Yeah, right, that helped.  I finish cutting cake and walk over to the pavilion a few minutes later.  The 3 little ones are at a table and hornets are swarming around them, all over the table.  First my girl in her adorable yellow party dress freaks out, screaming and swatting the air.  Then the little boy across from her does the same, and then the little boy next to him does it.  They are trying to eat their cake and they are totally aggravated.  It would be hysterical if it wasn’t so awful.  It really didn’t matter a whole lot that the cake got dropped.  Nobody was able to enjoy it anyway.  I feel like I’m in a movie starring Chevy Chase.

 

We need a plan.  “Everybody who smokes come on over here and light up.  We’ll blow smoke right at the kids so the hornets will go away and they can eat in peace.”

 

Nice.  Is this PC, or what?  There’s something wrong with us.  But it worked.  The kids got to eat cake.  

 

The party ended when the birthday girl got stung.  Many of our guests then came to our (hornet-free) house, where the Little Miss graciously received her benevolent callers from her kitchen-counter-throne while she soaked her foot.

 

Forget the cake.  This one will get tagged The Birthday of the Bees.