Like magic

We were sitting in our yard, Sam in her tall, round butterly tent and me on the edge where the grass meets our stone driveway-type-thing next to our barn. Sam was freaked out because there had just been a bee in -- or possibly just around or near -- her tent.

So I decided to distract her with something I remember thinking was way cool when I was about 5.

Me: "Hey, let's make some magic potions!"

Sam (surprisingly skeptical): "Magic potions?"

Me: "Sure! We just need to pick some flowers, mix them with some other stuff, say some magic words, and we can make anything appear."

After informing me that I could NOT pick any flowers because that would make the bees mad, Sam warmed up to the idea. We grabbed clumps of grass and piled them up just outside the entrance to her tent. We added two rocks, and we used the stem from a spent dandelion/wishy to "stir" everything together.

Me: "So what do you want to make happen? We can make a unicorn appear, or we can make ..."

Sam: "I want to make all the bees stay away from my tent!"

Practical thinking. I like that. Plus, I hate bees.

So we said some magic words (Sam: "Mo-om, you don't know the magic word? It's abracadabra!"), made a silly rhyme with "bees" or "tent," and voila! The magic was done.

Sam, still lying in her tent, scanned the area immediately surrounding her tent. I kid you not, there was not a bee to be seen.

"Wow!" she said, her huge eyes open wide. "It really worked!"

"Yeah!" I said. "Let's try another one."

"OK," Sam said, bounding out of her tent. "You say the magic part, and I'll be the thing that appears."

"OK," I said. "What do you want to be?"

"A butterfly!"

"All right, then I think I need some of this special grass from over here to get a butterfly to appear," I said, plucking some weird-looking leaves that I'm pretty sure weren't poisonous and tossing them into the pile.

Again, I said some magic words, made a crappy rhyme with "butterfly," and voila! The Sammy butterfly emerged from behind the tent, her wings a-flapping.

And a real, white butterfly skimmed past her just as she made her appearance.

"Wooooow!" she said again, truly impressed. "It really workeded again!"

Then we made a unicorn appear, but since we could see that only with our "pretend eyes," she wasn't quite as impressed with that one as the others. But after a minute or so, she was trotting around with the unicorn, petting its nose and making a crown out of leaves for it.

It was a great day.