A Freakin’ Bear

In the days since my vacation my backyard has gone from a peaceful oasis of natural beauty to an unsafe breeding ground of predatory life forms. I just finished my vacation book, The Year of Fog. Through her well-crafted novel, Michelle Richmond awakened within me an extreme kidnapping paranoia. That, coupled with my already heightened fear of child predators formed by watching one
too many episodes of 20/20, has left me an emotional basket case when my kids are out of site and in the comfort of their own backyard. It's absurd and I know it will lessen as the book fades from my memory but I've got some other issues to face right now.

Check out this article. No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a black bear that wandered from its forest home into civilization. The civilization he wandered into just happens to consist of my little 'hood. The bear was hit by a vehicle about a block and a half from my house. Now, when I let my kids into the freedom of my fenced-in (4 foot picket) backyard, I am exposing them to the possibility of a bear attack. A BEAR ATTACK. And it's not like my house is surrounded on all sides by a pristine forest. I live smack dab in the middle of a residential area. The street the bear was killed on is a four lane road, complete with a high school, a CVS, several gas stations and car dealerships.

My peace-lovin' husband has never owned a gun but shared with me on more than one occasion that he would purchase one if we ever lived near bears. I guess we're going gun shopping soon. Gun shopping and child-leash shopping. Knowing Tennessee, we should have no trouble finding a one-stop-shop for both!

Vacation

We're on vacation this week and spent today in the wonderland that is Dolly-in-da-hood. My son did me proud and proved that he is no longer a ride wuss. He's a thrill-seeker now! My daughter, um, not so much. She was more of a fried chicken/biscuit seeker, enjoying the country cooking that is abound in Dolly Parton's theme park. She spent the thirty  minutes following lunch walking at a snail's pace throughout the park, gnawing on a chicken leg.

We went to Smoky Mountain National Park yesterday and saw all manner of spring blooms and wildlife, including an adorable otter sitting on a rock. I was the only one that saw him (we were in the car) and, although I believe my fellow passengers are skeptical of my experience, it was, hands down, the most exciting wildlife siting of my life. I'm determined to find an illegally domesticated otter on the black market and raise him as my pet. Yep, I'm only one person but I can do my part for nature and give an unsuspecting otter a life of American gluttony. It's my civic duty.

I must say that the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area is a literal cesspool of weapons outlets, rebel flag merchandise, restaurant franchises and airbrushing vendors but it is redeemed entirely by the Smoky Mountain National Park. I could spend the entire week there and never get bored.

I Can See Heaven

I am a stickler about car seat safety. In the field day of motherhood there are many events. Breastfeeding advocacy might be yours, or perhaps homeschooling. Mine is car seat safety. I'm a car seat Momzilla. My son looks like an oversized baby in his Britax. At five-years-old, he belongs in a
booster seat, but I stress about his freedom of movement and the fact that his positioning, not the exceptional design of the car seat and straps, will determine his level of safety. I'm going to suck it up in August and get the kid a booster seat but, until then, my son's shoulders are still below the straps and I plan on making good use of that pricey seat.

I'm especially cautious when I have other people's children in the car with me. Every other Friday, I pick up my friend Candice's son, Cody. He goes to school with my son and they are great friends. I take them to lunch and then to my house for some play time. For this reason, I keep an extra car seat in my car, strapped in and ready to go. I had removed it, though, and moved the rear seat to move some big items so I had to reinstall it in the car line. I'm a stickler about installation and I always tug at the seat before Cody gets in it to make sure it hasn't loosened since the last time it was used. I went through this whole process when I picked Cody up last week. I made sure all three kids were strapped in well and I set off towards the golden arches.

There's only about a mile and two stoplights between McDonald's and my son's school. I was chatting  with the kids about the day's activities when I stopped, rather abruptly at the first light (it was pink). I heard a thud and looked in my rearview mirror. Cody was gone. Disappeared. Vanished. I freaked and called his name,

Me: Cody? Cody?

Cody: (calm) I'm here.

Me: Are you OK?

Cody: I can see heaven.

Thankfully, "heaven" was the sky, not the afterlife. While I had expertly installed the car seat, I had failed to lock the actual rear van seat into place (our seats flip back for tailgating purposes when they aren't locked). When I stopped quickly, the seat (with Cody in it), had flipped back so that Cody, still strapped into the car seat, was essentially lying down. He had been cushioned by the car seat so didn't bat an eyelash but it was pretty jarring to suddenly notice that one kid wasn't in the car anymore!

Pants Schmants

Our temperatures topped out at about 71 degrees today and my kids, scarred from our brutal winter (sorry Northern folks—I realize "brutal" has a very different meaning in the South but it's all relative), were playing in the yard and decided to pull out the hose this afternoon. There were screeches of laughter intermixed with a few high-pitched angry screams. Aaahhh… the glorious sounds of Spring.  Not long after the laughter faded, Bubba showed up in the kitchen buck naked from the waist down. Here's our conversation:

Me: What happened?

Bubba: I got wet.

Me: Where are your pants?

Bubba: I don't know.

Me: What do you mean you don't know?

Bubba: I can't remember (it's important to note that just 2 minutes prior his pants were on)

Me: Well, you need to go find them.

Bubba: OK.

Me: (a little frantic) Wait! Put some pants on first! You can't just walk around naked in the backyard.

Bubba: But Sissy is.

And that, my friends, is how it came to pass that my kids are running around my backyard as I type this in 70-degree weather with their bathing suits on.  It's a beautiful thing.

Castration Anxiety

I took Dudley (our dog) to the vet yesterday to get "fixed."  My son was in preschool but my daughter was with me for the drop-off. Both kids have gone with me to the vet with the Duds before to get his shots so it wasn't a new place for my daughter but she was accustomed to taking him in, going into
the examination room with him, and bringing him back home. She had a conniption fit when the vet tech took Dudley back into the bowels of the office and I informed her that we were leaving:

Daughter: What about Duddy?

Me: He's staying here. He has to spend the night here tonight after his operation.

Daughter: (lower lip making it's way out, face contorting and breath becoming heavy) Duddy want to come home with us. He need us! He need us!

Me: Sweetie, he's going to come home with us tomorrow. You can come with me to get him but he has to stay here after his surgery so they can make sure he is OK.

Daughter: (jumping now, each time feet getting further off of the ground) No! No! He want us Mommy! Duddy want us!

This continued for a little while and nothing I said seemed to console her.  Everyone in the office was staring at us with sympathetic eyes that expressed equal amounts of sympathy for my daughter, for her intense empathy for Dudley and me, for having to deal with my daughter. "Poor thing," they said with an overly dramatic frown. I laughed a nervous laughed, picked my daughter up and carried her out to the car, kicking and screaming. It was one of those rare moments where I was completely at a loss for what to do because I did sympathize with her. A part of me wanted to just hold her and comfort her until she understood that Dudley was not being abandoned. The other part of me, the one that was being kicked and scratched and yelled at, wanted to haul her back into the vet's office and inject her with a non-lethal dose of animal tranquilizer so I could put her in her car seat.

She was like a wild animal. Every time I pushed her bottom into the car seat far enough to get the strap almost buckled, she would arch her back and come out of the seat. After about four times and some serious not-detectable-to-my-daughter's-delicate-ears profanities, I got her in. She cried the entire way home and spent the last twenty-four hours asking about Dudley:

Where's Duddy Mommy? He needs us. He wants his Mommy.

Does Duddy miss me?

(Every time we got in the car) Are we going to get Duddy?

Suffice it to say I was relieved when I picked the Dud up this morning. He seems relatively unaffected by his sudden lack of testicles and happy to be home.

April Fools!

For anyone who read today's earlier post and failed to read the comments, it was an April Fool's joke. There are no Baby Hales on the way. We've got all we can handle for the time being!

Big News

I found out this morning that Hale baby #3 is on it's way. I thought I'd throw it out in the blogosphere for all of my friends and family to see, save me the trouble of calling so many people.