A Walk in the Park

Due to the graphic content of this blog, parental discretion is advised.

Last night, the weather in Pittsburgh was just beautiful and Cody and I decided to take our little fam on a nice stroll to the park. We make our way down to the park, which is about a quarter of a mile away, with Morgan bundled in a pack snuggled against Cody's chest, and Claire walking, hopping, skipping, and tripping next to me. Claire plays in the park for a while and then she decides she wants to head over to the soccer fields at the park where there are a bunch of kid-teams practicing. Its starting to get dark so we tell her its time to start walking home. Claire, being the obedient child that she is, takes off running and manages to disrupt three different soccer teams by running directly through their practice. I, of course, was running after her, calling out her name, but it didn't help that she had quite the head start, and I was slowed down by, shall we say, heaving bosoms and a not-so-very-supportive nursing bra (that's not even the graphic stuff, folks). Finally a coach got a hold of her and kindly brought her back to me. Embarrassing? Nah, not really. This kind of stuff happens all the time in our household. And the only reason I bothered to write this part is because it is one of the stars that aligned to create the perfect storm, that nearly robbed us of our lives. . .

Normally when we leave the park we take a little path that leads to a parking lot of a catholic school that leads to a road that leads to our home. But since Claire had decided to run all the way across the field, we were far away from that path. The parking lot, however, was right above us- we just had to climb up a steep wooded slope to the parking lot and theoretically save a lot time and distance. I didn't want to do it, since Cody had Morgan strapped to his chest- the slope was muddy and slick, I didn't want him to fall. But he said we could do it if we walked on the branches and bramble along the side of the mud path. The path wasn't super long- maybe 20 ft, but it was pretty steep. I was also worried about Claire being able to do it. Cody went on ahead while I tried to get Claire to walk up the path. Claire wanted to hold Dad's hand but he had Morgan and was already half way up the path. So I was fighting with her to hold her hand, to make her walk on the side and not on the slick mud, which is where her real desire lay, when I started to slip, so I turned around and brought Claire down. I decided that it wasn't worth fighting Claire all the way up a slippery path, so we would just walk around. Claire was in partial tantrum mode (partial, because she was only screaming her head off, and not limp-fishing it). By this time Cody had made it to the top and we couldn't see him anymore- Claire thought he was leaving us and she didn't understand that we could catch up to him if we walked around a different way. Well, while Claire was trying to break the sound record with her voice, apparently Cody was also screaming something up at the top of the hill, but I couldn't hear him over previously cited tantrum. Claire was looking so sad, so abandoned about not following dad up the hill, I thought I wouldn't fight this battle, that I would just lift Claire up the slope and get to the top with dad. If only I had heard what Cody had been screaming, we would have been safe. . . (if this was a Nancy Drew novel, this would be the end of a chapter).

So I start lugging Claire up this mountain side. It was really starting to get dark, plus the path was completely covered overhead by trees, and Claire was screaming all the way up that she didn't want to be carried, she wanted to walk by herself. But I was too focused on making it up the path to care that she was screaming. I get almost to the top of the hill when all of the sudden I feel sharp, fire, needles, pain on my leg. I didn't know what it was but it was sharp pain all over my ankle and my first thought is, I have fire ants on my leg and they were biting. I start running and shouting, "ouch, ouch" (you can imagine I am sure), carrying a confused and probably scared Claire to the top of the hill where I stop, put Claire down, and start brushing off whatever the heck was attacking my leg. Cody suddenly sees us there screaming, when he runs toward us shouting, "Run, run!!" So I pick up Claire again, and run towards him, in shock, confusion, and anger, yelling, "what the heck is that?"

"Bees!" he shouts.

Wasps, actually. We had apparently walked right through a wasp's nest. Cody had gone through first and was stung several times on the leg- he took off running, yelling back at us not to come up because there were bees. When he got away from the bees he noticed Morgan had a bee in her hair, and he swatted it way, but not before it had stung her in the back of the head. He thought we had heard him and were walking around to the other path, so he stunned when he saw us at the top of the path, screaming. I was stung four times on my legs and once in my armpit (I hope there is a special place in hell for that particular wasp) and it felt like I was on fire. Claire was just frightened and confused, asking me if a bug had bitten me. She, luckily, had not been stung at all. But Morgan, MORGAN! When I found out Morgan had been stung, I started crying- I was mad, I was in pain, and I felt horrible and fearful that Morgan had been stung. A million scenarios rushed through my head (okay not a million, just one)- what if she had a reaction and started to swell- she is only 3 and half weeks old!! When we got home, Cody picked the stinger out of her head, all while she was screaming. It was heartbreaking.

So tonight, 24 hours later, we are all doing fine. The searing pain in my leg and armpit have gone away, though not the annoying itch that inevitably follows stings. Morgan seems to be doing well, she doesn't cry when you touch the spot where she was bit. We feel horribly unlucky that we happened upon that path last night, and we feel lucky that none of us were allergic to wasps (remember that horrible scene from My Girl?). Cody promised me he would make a special trip back to that path and give those wasps a proper greeting, vigilante style.