Category: Inspirational

Feathers… feathers everywhere…….  Feathers were softly floating, in mass quantities, through the air in the bedroom, when I opened the door that day. 

I was momentarily confused.  I had sent my little five-year-old to our bedroom, for her nap, since she and her sibling had been bickering.  As my eyes locked onto hers and then down to the pair of scissors in her hand, realization slowly dawned on me.

 My good feather down comforter lay in her lap with ragged slices in every direction.  As I stood with my mouth open, shock beginning to settle in, I heard her cheery little voice say, “Look mama, I’m sewing for you”. 

Don’t you love it when children get caught doing something naughty, they always add the “for you” part onto the end of their confession?

Remember when I said that my mouth had been hanging open?  Well, it was still hanging there, but now it was preparing to usher forth some very graceful and eloquent words gathered from, I’m sure, a very well-educated Semi Driver.  Fortunately for most parents, God has instilled a great safety mechanism for just this sort of occasion.  You lose all ability to form even the simple sentences.  Verbally, you are reduced to an angry toddler.

 All I can remember, was uttering a guttural moan, and then starting in with an I…you…my…how…and then I called the other parent responsible for this little being… As he came stumbling down the stairs, I pointed to the bedroom and said hysterically, “Your child…..you need to fix this…leaving!”

Long story short, my calm and steady parent partner cleaned up with our first born in tow, making her collect and reinsert as many feathers as she could catch.  If you are wondering if any valuable lessons were learned that day, there were none! Lol, except having a sense of humor about life…

“Your little one sure is a stinker”, were the words that came from the mouth of our Hostess. We stayed for a week at their families ranch. She continued on, saying “She was missing for over an hour today while you were on the trail ride. I thought that I was going to have to tell you that I lost your child”.

Apparently, right after we left on our horseback ride, our youngest child went missing. The family had every available ranch hand searching frantically for a tiny three year old. Though they searched high and low, through all the barns and rooms, the child was no where to be found. The hostess told us that just as she was leaving her second sweep of one of the cabins, she heard a wee little giggle coming from underneath one of the beds. As she peeked under the bed, she discovered a delighted little three year old, along with one of the kittens discovered in the barn, staring out at her with an impish grin.

My child fell in love with that kitten, calling it Buttercup for some reason, even though its name was Gus, I think. Our little clown had been under that bed, watching the whole search party event along with her co conspirator, with great pleasure.

Relief is always a great diffuser of anger, I believe. Everyone was so happy to find the little escape artist, that they couldn’t be angry. They chose to laugh about it instead of dealing with panicked parents, had we gotten back before they found our child.

So, here is a funny story!  I love the outdoors and if I can help it, I am out there as much as possible.  I make an effort to take a walk nearly every day, and I have a route that I have used for some time now.  I do a good amount of thinking on these morning jaunts, as I call them.  Sometimes it can be very productive, but at other times, I let my mind just wander to relax.  On one of these such relaxing mornings, I hatched a plan, that in my mind, would be very funny to any that were involved.  I have a great many squirrels that I encounter on a regular basis, and I was going to recruit them for this idea.

I came up with a plan to simply begin saying hello, out loud, to every squirrel I encountered and give each a random name, as if I actually know them.  I thought that if I did this, eventually, the passersby that frequently saw me, would begin to think that maybe I knew the squirrels.  I could simply wait for the time when someone would stop me to ask how I knew all of the squirrels names, and I could then say, “Oh no, I have no idea, I just thought it would be funny”. I didn’t say that it WOULD be funny, I just imagined it would be funny.

The next morning, I headed out onto the trail, thoroughly tickled with myself, for what I thought would be an extremely funny idea.  Honestly, I giggled to myself all the way down the block as I began looking for my first unwitting participant (a squirrel, that is).  I got about a half hour into my trek, playing over and over in my head how it would play out, and then I spotted a squirrel.

I learned two things that morning.  Number one, I discovered that, apparently, a lot of squirrels share the name Bob.  Number two, Peanuts!  I should have brought peanuts.  My recommendation is that we not engage in conversation with wildlife, unless we bring some sort of food offering.  I think someone else may have been conditioning these guys way before I ever thought up my ridiculous idea!

Here is how it went down…I saw the squirrel, I approached confidently, thinking how funny this was gonna be, I called out, “Hey Bob”, and before I knew it I was being chased down the trail by three hungry squirrels.  I felt like it happened in slow motion…lol…I spoke, our eyes connected, they looked hungry, I had nothing but a coffee tumbler and a tissue, Coffee over Heathens I say!   I did not care how absolutely ridiculous I must have appeared to onlookers.  I actually think I may have laughed out loud at myself, but I did not care!  I walked a different route for two days after that to let them forget me hopefully.

I still see the same three squirrels on the trail regularly, and the accusation is still there on those furry little faces… Where Are OUR Peanuts!!!!