Bedtime with Mrs.
Honeybee Today,
In the Honeybee neighborhood,
We'll be playing an epic game of.
.
.
Freeze Tag.
Tag,
You're it!
Melody Bee,
We haven't even started playing yet.
I know,
Just practicing.
You're pretty fast,
Melody Bee,
But I'm faster.
I've got Harold on my team.
Come on,
Little guy.
All you have to do is close your eyes,
Get cozy,
And listen to the sound of my voice.
Mrs.
Honeybee will be your guide.
Let's begin.
You are here,
In the Honeybee neighborhood,
Walking up the driveway to our house.
But today,
There's no need to knock on the front door,
Because we're all outside.
It's such a beautiful day that we decided to spend it outside in the sunshine.
Take a slow,
Deep breath in through your nose.
Feel the simple,
Small joy of the sun shining on your skin.
Then,
Slowly,
Breathe all the way out through your mouth,
As you pick Harold up and hold him in the crook of your arm,
Petting his floppy ears.
My little Honeybee,
Today we are going to do something we haven't done before,
And it's going to be so much fun.
Harold,
Let's show everyone what we've been practicing.
Harold leaps down from your arms and runs in circles around my feet,
Following the command which is twirling around me like an orchestra conductor.
After a few dizzying circles,
My hand stops,
And I say,
Freeze.
Harold stops in place and stands perfectly still.
He doesn't even blink or wag his tail.
You try petting his head,
But he still doesn't budge.
Mr.
Honeybee laughs at Harold,
Trying his best not to react.
Then he leans in to expose Harold's greatest weakness.
I don't think anyone can withstand being tickled,
No matter how frozen in freeze-tag they are.
Now,
Mr.
Honeybee tickles Harold on the side of his belly,
Right by his arm,
Where he is so,
So ticklish.
Harold squirms trying to contain his wiggles,
But he cannot stand it.
He unfreezes and charges Mr.
Honeybee for slobbery kisses.
You did great,
Though,
Boy.
You're going to do so well in this game.
Today,
My little Honeybee,
We will play freeze-tag,
And Harold can play with us.
I'll be it first.
You better run.
You take off as fast as you can,
Being as silly as you can,
Run up and down the driveway and in circles around Melody B and Harold.
This game is going to be the most challenging for Melody B,
Because she'll have to hover in midair when she freezes.
Everyone waits eagerly for me to yell freeze,
But until then,
You run and run in the sunshine.
Then,
Once you nearly forget what you're waiting for,
You hear freeze.
In an instant,
You freeze every single one of your muscles.
While you're frozen here,
Take another slow,
Deep breath in through your nose.
Still your mind,
Body,
And self from the inside out.
Then,
Slowly,
Breathe out through your mouth,
As I slowly walk around,
Inspecting everyone who is frozen in place.
Mr.
Honeybee has his arm up in the air.
Harold has it the easiest.
He was rolling around in the grass,
So he's just laying on his back with his paws and snout up towards the sun.
You are able to hold your frozen position perfectly.
Melody B,
Though,
Is shaking and wiggling.
She cannot hover for very long.
Before anyone else,
She drops to the ground with a big sigh.
Ah,
I was trying to remember to run so I could freeze easily.
You win this round,
Mrs.
Honeybee,
But just you wait.
Go!
Again,
We run around in wild patterns,
Being as silly as we can,
But this time we run hand in hand and spin in circles until we're dizzy.
Melody B opens her mouth as if she's going to say freeze many times,
But fakes us out.
We continue running around until we hear her say freeze.
All of us freeze completely.
Mr.
Honeybee is lifting Harold high up in the air,
But both of them are frozen.
We are frozen side by side,
Trying not to giggle and move ourselves in any way.
Take another slow,
Deep breath in through your nose.
Feel your chest expand and create more space for your breath.
Then,
Slowly,
Breathe all the way out through your mouth.
Everyone freezes successfully,
So Melody B yells out,
Hey,
Unfreeze everyone.
You're too good at this.
We unfreeze and continue romping around,
But Mr.
Honeybee doesn't join us.
Harold is wiggling in his uplifted hands,
But he cannot wiggle out of Mr.
Honeybee's grasp.
Mr.
Honeybee is the freeze tag winner.
You can unfreeze now,
Though.
You definitely won.
Dear,
You can unfreeze now.
I think Harold wants to go back down to the ground.
Mr.
Honeybee?
Can you hear us?
I can't oof.
You can't oof?
You don't need to oof.
You can just unfreeze.
Melody B,
I think he's saying he can't move.
Mr.
Honeybee,
Can you move?
No,
I'm stuck.
Harold finally wiggles himself free and jumps down into your arms,
But Mr.
Honeybee cannot move at all.
With your one free arm,
You pull on one of his arms,
While I pull on the other,
Just to see if we can move them for him.
We pull and pull,
Trying our best to not hurt him in his frozen state.
He still doesn't move.
Harold jumps down to the ground and paws at Mr.
Honeybee's legs.
But he still doesn't move.
Harold does Mr.
Honeybee's favorite trick to see if making him laugh will help unfreeze him.
Harold stands up on his hind legs,
Then slowly walks backwards,
Step by step.
We can hear Mr.
Honeybee laugh,
But still,
No movement.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Oh,
Good,
Harold.
Uh,
Good.
.
.
One.
.
.
Her.
.
.
Old.
My dear,
Is this one of your funny pranks?
Are you tricking us?
He's totally tricking us.
We're not gonna fall for it,
Mr.
Honeybee.
If you're tricking us,
You're going to get tickled.
No,
No tickle.
No,
No.
Tickle's incoming.
You better move.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
No,
No,
No.
All of us tickle Mr.
Honeybee relentlessly.
If he was pranking us,
He definitely would be able to withstand a tickle attack.
Or so we think.
Melodybee wants to test out one more thing.
No one can withstand a buzzing bee in their ears.
Here come the buzzes.
You better move,
Mr.
Honeybee.
Oh,
Goodness.
Ha ha ha ha.
That tickles even more.
Ha ha ha ha.
Oh,
What's happening to me?
We know for sure now that Mr.
Honeybee is not pranking us.
No one,
Absolutely no one,
Can withstand Harold walking backwards,
A tickle attack,
And bee buzzes in the ear.
This is something else.
Something we've never seen before.
We're going to have to experiment with this situation,
And for that,
We have to think like Mr.
Honeybee himself.
A tinkerer extraordinaire.
We're out in the front yard,
Standing in the shade of a tree,
So we look all around us to see what we can use in this predicament.
The first thing we see is the hose,
And you're thinking exactly what I'm thinking.
You run over to get the hose as I explain our line of thinking to Mr.
Honeybee,
Who is understandably hesitant.
Mr.
Honeybee,
My dear,
We're going to try hosing you off.
That works for ice cubes.
They melt in the warm sun tea,
You know?
Since we can't dunk you in sun tea.
Wait,
Do you think we can dunk him in sun tea?
Oh,
I don't know if we have a glass that big.
No,
Please don't,
Please,
Please don't.
Okay,
Okay,
Don't worry.
We won't dunk you in sun tea.
That was silly.
Let's try spraying you down with the hose.
If you must,
My dear.
Together,
We steady the garden hose and spray Mr.
Honeybee from head to toe.
When we see that he's not unfreezing at all,
We give him another round,
Like sending a car back through the car wash when it's extra dirty.
Mr.
Honeybee's eyes wince closed.
Then I try holding the hose over his head on shower mode,
So it's like spring rain on flowers.
We keep that on him and give the grass a good watering too.
Mr.
Honeybee is able to squint open his eyes,
But he's not too thrilled about being hosed down.
That idea didn't seem to work,
But it gave Harold and Melody B.
Separate ideas.
We each run to get things while we stay with Mr.
Honeybee.
Harold comes back with his favorite ragged towel,
And after he gets a hose bath,
His favorite thing in the whole world is being towel-dried.
He thought that could help Mr.
Honeybee.
It's worth a try,
So we towel-dry him,
But he's still as frozen as ever.
Now he's wrinkly and his hair is standing up too.
When Melody B.
Comes back,
She takes a completely different approach.
This happens to my flowers sometimes when they need to be pollinated.
They'll just freeze completely.
They won't bloom.
They won't do anything.
So I have some pollen here.
Mr.
Honeybee,
Just hold still.
Well,
I guess you already are.
You're doing great.
Keep doing what you're doing.
Okay.
Melody B.
Gives us each a palm full of pollen.
In her estimation,
All we need to do is blow it onto Mr.
Honeybee so he can begin to bloom,
And maybe for people that means unfreeze.
With the pollen in your upturned palm,
Take a slow,
Deep breath in through your nose.
Then slowly breathe all the way out through your mouth and blow the pollen over Mr.
Honeybee.
Since he's not all the way dry,
All the pollen sticks to him really well.
Melody B.
Happily cheers at a pollination well done,
But Mr.
Honeybee doesn't seem nearly as excited.
He's now soaking wet,
Hair sticking straight up,
And covered in pollen.
We try my blue dryer to thaw him,
The air compressor in his garage,
And everything else we can think of.
Each of our attempts layers over Mr.
Honeybee without helping to unfreeze him.
That's when you bring up the best idea yet.
Why don't we let the sun thaw him?
The sun does that naturally to snow each spring.
We just have to get Mr.
Honeybee out of the shade.
Standing up tall with his arms in the air,
Like he's still holding Harold playing,
Mr.
Honeybee nervously looks his eyes side to side as we prepare to pick him up.
Together we are strong enough to do anything,
So we pick him up and hoist him over our shoulders with Melody B.
And Harold.
Whoa,
Whoa,
Whoa,
Careful.
Where are we going?
Well,
I'm thinking that if the solar panels on the roof spend the whole day absorbing the sun,
You need to be on the roof,
My dear.
Ah,
The roof.
We got you.
Don't worry,
Mr.
Honeybee.
Together,
Step by step,
We climb up a ladder all the way to the roof.
Right hand,
Left foot,
Left hand,
Left foot.
Slowly but surely,
We make it all the way up there and lay out on the soft blankets for us all to enjoy a nice afternoon on the roof.
Mr.
Honeybee stands up,
Still in the same position.
The neighbors that walk by think they're waving to him,
Which he prefers that he was.
He struggles to say hi to them,
So we wave everyone by so they don't think anything is wrong.
On the roof,
We make Mr.
Honeybee as comfy as possible.
We sit down beside him,
Waiting while the sun does its brilliant work.
As time passes,
We eventually lay down,
Basking in the warm sunshine.
Take another slow,
Deep breath in through your nose.
Feel the warmth of the sun shining on your cheeks.
Then,
Slowly,
Breathe all the way out through your mouth and let yourself feel heavy on the roof.
As we doze off a little,
We're suddenly woken up by Mr.
Honeybee talking normally.
Hey,
I think it's working.
I can move my arms.
Mr.
Honeybee is finally able to put his arms down.
He shakes them out and wiggles them all around.
His legs are still frozen and can't move,
But he can reach down to pet Harold,
Who was very worried about him.
With a little more time in the sun,
Mr.
Honeybee fully thaws and is surprisingly ready for another round of freeze tag,
With one important exception.
Well,
I'm it from now on in freeze tag.
We all get down from the roof and enjoy the rest of the afternoon,
Playing freeze tag in the sunshine.
Always remember,
Mrs.
Honeybee believes in you.
You are special and you are loved.
I can't wait to see you again.
