Guardian Angels

There is no way to spin this next episode so that I come off as a slightly ludicrous yet endearingly charming mommy. No, this story smacks of borderline neglect.

We're in Texas, and it's summertime. The high today was forecasted to be 99 degrees Fahrenheit (38C). Hannah wanted to go outside this afternoon. In Texas; during the summer. Can you already see the tragedy beginning to unfold?

The rest of us decided to stay in the comfort of our air conditioned house and watch A Little Princess, but that movie just didn't appeal to Hannah the Anti-Princess. She asked if she could go outside and read her book. In my head, I'm kind of annoyed because I really enjoyed reading A Little Princess with Michelle and Kimmy years ago when they were Hannah's age and I wanted Hannah to watch the movie so that she would have the desire to read the book too. But no, she would rather go OUT in the HEAT in TEXAS where there is no air conditioning to read Harry Potter than watch the boring movie mommy picked out. And no, I do not have issues. All right, maybe I do...

We started the movie, then Michelle called and we had a nice long chat. Afterwards, I went back to watch the movie and it was already to the part where Sarah Crew is a hungry pauper that gives her food to a little street urchin. Logan was off playing quietly and I thought about Hannah. She was STILL outside. Huh. Wonder if I should go have a peek? That thought was discarded as I figured Hannah would come in when she was ready. Then Kimmy called and we talked for about 30 minutes and got caught up. Little Jack will be 3 months old tomorrow, the same day that Kimmy is starting back to work after maternity leave. And John has gotten a new position at work with a raise as well. After our nice little catch up, I got back to the movie (which I had put on pause because Dan had fallen asleep on the couch sometime during the first phone call). Not too long after that, there was a knock at the door. I got up and saw it was Hannah. I opened the door and she stood there all forelorn then sadly spluttered that she had been stuck up in a tree for ever so long and couldn't get down because there was a bee hive nearby and she knows that nearly all wild bees in Texas are likely to be Africanized. So she sat outside and called for us but we were too far to hear her (in our tightly closed, air conditioned house). She prayed for us to come check on her, but no one came (even though Mommy had been prompted on two seperate occations to check on her). While she was stranded, she cried and thought that probably by bedtime, we would come looking for her. Finally, after at least an hour and a half, she slid off the branch she was on, skinning her tummy. It was the only way to escape her prison and avoid the bees.

When she told us her story, we hugged her and cooled her off and cuddled her overheated little self. Dan went out to retrieve her book and took some pictures of the bee hive in the tree where Hannah was stranded. His heart gave a jump when he saw how close her reading limb was to the hive and how very badly she might have been hurt had the bees attacked. We are so thankful that the Lord shielded her from harm and brought her safely home to us.