Some days, everything just works. Other days, your three-year-old gets stung by a bee. As my mom’s friend used to say when they worked in an elementary school together, “The bus is going to hell and you’re driving it!”

Yesterday, we completed the Day 4 activity but I didn’t get to write about it because my children hate sleep. When I got home from work, we had a lovely time poking, smashing, smudging, and squishing leaves, weeds, and clover into finger paint. Sprout also used his fingers to create a lovely swirl of red and blue.

But when it was time for bed, Chris had to run to the store, leaving me to put both kids to bed. After a back-and-forth where Little Bird fell asleep and then woke up and then Sprout ran around like a banchee, I ended up in Sprout’s room until past 11 PM. He was awake for ages and then I fell asleep in the overstuffed “book chair.” When I finally arose, it took all my energy just to brush my teeth and climb into my own bed.

Today, everything went pear-shaped before I even made it home. On my way out, I heard the Metro was literally on fire (or at least emitting smoke), so I needed to detour across the city via bike.

Knowing I would be home late, Chris picked up the Day 5 challenge duties. Taking a bug’s eye view, they poked around in the unmowed grass for a while and found a feather. All of the sudden, a bee started chasing Chris. (He probably sat on it by mistake.) He sprinted to the deck to draw it away from the kids.

Instead, the bee doubled back and stung Sprout on the ear. Although he was a trooper, that was obviously the end of pretending to be a bug.

You can never fully count on kids, nature or life to cooperate the way you want them to.

Read about our experiences of the Outdoors Family Challenge with Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3 or get all of the prompts and experiences on the Outdoors Family Challenge page.