Today's Sunday Family Fun was an outing to a nearby state forest. The same state forest, in fact, where A. and Cubby went canoe camping over Father's Day weekend. A. actually led us right to the same site they camped on that trip (accessible by foot as well as canoe), where he proceeded to build a fire, using some of the pile of sticks they had left behind previously.
A. had one of those big sticks in his hand when Charlie started crawling towards the fire, no doubt bent on self-immolation. So A. reached out with the stick in his hand to block Charlie's progress. And Charlie SCREAMED.
It was not the "How dare you thwart me!" scream with which we are so familiar. It was an "OWWWWW" scream. I thought maybe A. had accidentally poked him in the eye or something. But when I pulled him onto my lap, I saw the hornet on his hand. And I pulled the hornet's stinger out of Charlie's pinkie.
Yeah. I would scream, too.
A. found a ground hornet nest under the pile of sticks he had been using, and there were quite a few pretty pissed-off hornets buzzing around. So he moved the fire on top of the pile of sticks, which took care of the hornets.
It wasn't until a few minutes later that I noticed Charlie's lip was swollen. Poor little dude got stung right on his top lip, in addition to his finger.
Surprisingly, the crying only lasted maybe thirty seconds before he forgot about it and started crawling around again. I would have wailed longer than that. Those are some tough little boys I have.
Good thing. This is no kind of life for a delicate child.
your kids just make me giggle. i keep trying to imagine what they'll be like when they're fourteen.
ReplyDelete'SPLOSIVES!!!
Stung twice??? Poor guy. That makes me hurt for him!
ReplyDeleteSo I'm a rube - how does one move a fire? I have visions of A doing that with his bare hands, but that's just because I think of him as a badass.
Flask: I try really hard NOT to imagine that. Eek.
ReplyDeleteLindsey: He did do it with his bare hands. There were longer sticks on top of the fire that had ends sticking out beyond the flames; he grabbed the ends and just shifted those burning sticks over a couple of feet.