Short Story Saturday: Memories of Cookies and Bees

     I belong to a group of blogging grandmothers.  If you are a blogging grandmother, let me know if you would like to join this Facebook group! I can invite you.  It is very supportive and helpful to those of us who are blogging at this late stage of life, ha ha ha.  
     One of the newest features is a challenge to take part in a short story prompt link party.  The current prompt is the 2nd edition of this link party.  I didn't participate in the first one, but this time I decided to give it a go.  Please read my creation and see what you think! For me it has been a fun, creative outlet. I will give you the link to check out the other stories in the challenge. 

Today's prompt is:  ​As I stood in the shower with the warm water running down…
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Memories of Cookies and Bees
A mostly fictional short story
By
Helen Reynolds
​of 3 Winks Design

     As I stood in the shower with the warm water running down my face and my body, trying to wash away not only the grime of the day, but the fatigue as well, I reflected on how amazing it is that a steamy shower was able to do that for me.  Maybe it is the warmth of the water and the steam clearing out my head.  Maybe it is the clean soapy smell filling me up that relaxes me.  All I knew was that I needed that refreshing feeling that day on my tired muscles.

      The morning had started as usual. I woke up and nudged my husband awake. He groaned at me and started to snore just a little longer while I went in the bathroom and brushed my teeth and washed my face and ran a comb through my hair.  Our grandkids were coming over (well, some of them were any way) and I wanted to be ready to have a fun day with them.  “Cookies,” I thought to myself!  They love decorating them so if I got some baked and ready to decorate, they would love it.  “A picnic,” my thoughts were getting me more excited! We could take an old quilt out on the lawn and eat lunch out there and play Hide & Seek and eat cookies.  That would be some great memories to make as well. 

      So, I got out some cookie cutters that look like dinosaurs and the ones that look like Pooh Bear characters and a couple of random flowers and animals and got busy.  The kids would be there at 10:00 and the cookie decorating would be the perfect activity to start them on!  We could also make plates of cookies for them to take home! While the cookies baked, I cut up fruit and made chicken sandwiches for lunch.  I started packing a basket with napkins and cups and juice in between switching out pans of cookies and mixing the frosting. (And they say people don’t really multi-task. Ha!)  My husband came out and I told him my idea.  He was on board and started checking that the backyard was ready for a bunch of playful kids, he found the picnic blanket and just when he came back into the kitchen to see if I needed help, there was a knock at the door and the fun had arrived!

     After saying a goodbye that had to last for half of the day to parents who gave us instructions as if we had never raised or even seen a child before, I told the kids our plans.  They were so excited!  I told them that first we had to wash hands and decorate our dessert and they raced into the bathroom.  I set out plates and Popsicle sticks for spreading frosting. There was a small cup of frosting for each child and lots of sprinkles

      It is so much fun to watch kids decorate cookies.  Even though you remind them that they shouldn’t lick their fingers, they can’t help themselves.  Some of them pile the cookie with tons of frosting and all of the sprinkles available.  Some want to decorate as many cookies as they can as quickly as possible and others decorate one and that is all they want to do.  One thing is certain, there will be as many sprinkles on the table and floor as there are on the cookies!  (Thinking about that made me giggle in the shower!) 

      When the cookies were all decorated, (or at least as many as they wanted to do), we packed some into the picnic basket and got all of the last minute items out of the fridge and packed and we were ready to go outside.  
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     We live on a large plot of land, so when I say backyard, I mean BACKYARD!  We went out of our back door and walked together down our sloped lawn to a shady spot under a large tree to spread our blanket.  I started handing out the food while grandpa poured drinks, wiped up spills and poured more drinks.  The kids told us all about what they had been up to and grandpa told them stories about things he had done as a kid.  They laughed and laughed because grandpa has some really funny stories!  We all ate a cookie or two and decided that they were extra good because they were handmade.  A couple of times, a bee or two came by, which scared a couple of the kids, but grandpa assured them that they wanted the sweet juice.  He packed it all up and took it in the house so it wouldn’t attract the bees.  A couple of the children and I shook out the blanket and folded it up and ran it up to the patio to take care of later.  There were still a number of bees, so we moved to a different part of the yard to get away from them and decided to start our game of Hide & Seek when grandpa came back outside.  

     I was “It” first and leaned against the corner of the house and started counting to 100 by fives, twice.  Then I yelled, “Ready or not, here I come!” and I went looking for everyone, pretending not to see the little ones peeking at me at first and wondering aloud where everyone could be.  Suddenly there was a loud screech and one of the children, an 8 year old, who had braved going back to the big tree to hide behind it came running towards me with a ton of bees surrounding him!  My husband yelled for all of the kids to get to the house and he scooped up the 8 year old and ran with him towards the back door!  I grabbed the picnic blanket and swatted at bees which started to slow down their pursuit the farther away everyone got from the tree.  Somehow we made it inside without any bees getting in.  When we looked out towards the tree we saw what the problem was!  The bees were swarming, trying to make a new hive on the branch of our tree! 

     First we checked everyone over for bee stings.  The 8 year old had two! Everyone else was clear.  Luckily, Mr. 8 year old wasn’t allergic and we just put ice on the wounds to keep down the swelling and kept an eye on him and his breathing.  Then we called a friend who happens to be a bee keeper.  He kindly came over and was able to somehow collect the hive later that day!  He must have gotten the new queen, because when he drove away, all of the left over bees followed him down the road! 

     Well, now our beautiful day with our grandkids had to be moved indoors!  So, it was tunnels and forts built with quilts and furniture for about an hour until our kids came to pick them up.  Oh my!  The stories that had to be told about our big bee adventure!  Our 8 year old was the star of the show and all of the kids bragged about how strong grandpa had been to just scoop up such a big boy and run with him.

​     When everyone was gone, plates of cookies in hand, my husband and I looked at the house and then at each other and just laughed a bit before starting the clean-up process.  “I didn’t know that you could still run so fast,” I teased. 
     “Neither did I,” he said!
    We got the house back in order and my husband went and lay on the bed for “just a minute” and started snoring.  I got into the shower and began to wash the stickiness and sweat away.  I thought about how much more wrong the day could have gone, but what a blessing that it hadn’t. And, even though it had been an unexpected and crazy day, I knew that today was a story that would live in everyone’s memories. The day of cookies and bees!

Here is another great way to make a story: 

Use Mixbook to make a storybook for your grandkids.

Just starting your family?  Be sure to make a gift registry on Amazon! So many perks!