Wasp & Bee Season

Mom loves pretty flowers and Spring, but it also makes her extremely nervous. Pretty flowers mean there's bees and wasps and Mom hates bees and wasps. She's allergic to them which means they make her very sick. The first time she got stung she was little little. She was probably about 4 years old and she was going to kill the bug for her mom and that's pretty much all she remembers until later when someone handed her a balloon for being good. It's not hard to be good when you're in shock! Mom was a really good kid anyway and her grandma worked as the receptionist at the clinic where her Mom took her so in case you were wondering if she was pretending to be sick just to get the balloon, she wasn't. She always went to visit her grandma at the clinic and the nurses loved her and always gave her balloons so really getting the balloon was no big deal for her. Anyway, then about (hold on Mom has to try to do some math) 17 years later or so, Mom was working at a tourist attraction pulling pretzels out of the pizza oven and all of a sudden she felt something on her arm and it was a bee suck in her arm. The girl working with her had been trying to convince Mom to get hurt since they had opened earlier that morning so she could flirt with the first aid guys. The girl knew Mom was allergic to bees and so called the first aid guys to come to take care of Mom. She didn't get to flirt because all 4 guys were taking care of Mom. Working in a place like that you have to let the people you work with and the first aid people know about allergies like that just in case. Mom had always heard that your second sting was supposed to the worse and as you got older the worse it got even more. The first aid guys took her outside to the table area and started working on her. They made her take these HUGE pink antihistamine pills and told her to take 2 every 2 hours. Later, after the world stopped spinning, Mom read the instructions on the package and it said to take 1 every 4 hours. That's when she realized why she was so sleepy. The also put some drawing salve on her sting and they came and changed that every couple of hours for her. Since it was a special event that day, they had a face painter who painted a bumblebee on her arm. Mom has a picture of the bee on her face and her arm all taped up, but she says it's bad picture and she's not going to dig it out and scan it. She says she's pretty sure it's at Grandma's packed anyway. Mom made it through the day - kinda. She was supposed to be supervising the shops in her area, but she was too sleepy to do much of anything so she pretty much just stood back and watched people all day. She never went into shock because she got immediate attention (thanks to the flirty girl she was working with), but she said when all 4 guys came running down the hill to her shop and then started whipping out their first aid kits, she got really nervous. She said she knew it was procedure for every first aid call, but she kinda freaked when one guy got the neck brace out of his. She laughs about it now because that was a long time ago. Mom's arm swelled up really big that day and stayed that way for a few months and then for like 3 years that spot would itch really bad and swell up again. Luckily, it doesn't do that anymore. Mom should have gone to the hospital, but that was back when she avoided doctors totally.

So, Mom tries to avoid wasps and bees as much as she can. Before Mom adopted the rest of us, it was just Sasha that was around to take care of Mom. One summer (when Sasha was really young), Sasha's nose swelled up really big (there's pictures of that too and Mom thinks those are at Grandma's too). At first nobody could figure out what was going on and then Mom saw her trying to catch bees and Mom realized she had been stung. Mom and Sasha adopted Dad and then they adopted Gunnar and then me so there's more of us to take care of Mom now. If Dad is home, we let him take care of it. If he isn't, then we first warn Mom of the danger and then we all try to get it. If Dad is going to be home soon we watch it very carefully and then go crazy when Dad walks in the door. If it's going to be awhile the Mom usually has to try to kill it herself because fly swatters only work if you have those cool thumbs. Mom is a really bad shot though, especially with mid air swats. Dad fixed that though. Look what he got her:

Sasha! Get out of the way!!!

I didn't realize the picture was so dark. you can see the important parts though. There's a little button on the side that Mom pushes before she goes to swat and then she swings and bzzzzzzzzzzt, electrocutes the bug!! We can't wait to try it out. So far there aren't any bugs around. it has a wide area for swatting to make sure Mom's aiming doesn't become a factor. Dad tried out the electrical part and his exact words were (in a high pitched voice) "whew, that's got a bite to it!". There's a cage thing for protection so it's safe, you know how Dad's are, they have to mess with things that should be left alone.

I think Mom will be ready for wasp and bee season this year. She's gotten her epi-pens out of the closet and she's got her meat tenderizer and bandages out and is trying to fit them in her purse. That's another reason she hates wasp & bee season - all the extra weight in her purse. She didn't used to have epi-pens, but Dad said she couldn't go camping without them. Of course Mom wants to go camping so she got one. She made Dad read the instructions so he would know how to do it because the instructions made Mom dizzy and she's pretty sure she could never do the shot herself anyway. Her first pen came with a practice pen which made her nervous. Dad thought it was funny to practice on my butt! (Dad's also have a weird sense of humor.)

Speaking of Dad, he should be home any minute now so I better go watch for him. He keeps talking about taking Sasha somewhere on Thursday and I want to know where and why I'm not going. I'm the fun one!! Sasha whines all the time so I don't understand why she's going with Dad and I'm not!