wonderfully made: Lay-Down-Awake Baby on the Tree Top...the new lullaby?

When I was 14 years old, my dog found a baby squirrel that had fallen from his nest. I'm not sure if the fall did it, or my dog, but somehow the little guy got paralyzed from his waist down. I wound up keeping Chippy in a cage for nearly 6 months. I would take him out to exercise his front legs, bathe him, pet him... he would roll over for you to scratch his belly and under his neck. I even let him crawl around outside some. But, as you can imagine, climbing up trees did a number on his little squirrel-man bits. Stop laughing. I'm serious! Eventually, as he got older, he started biting and not being so friendly. So, I gave him to a wild animal rescue. I'm sure they took extra loving care of Chippy. Or euthanized him. I try not to think about it.

Ok, and the point to all this? I am a helpless animal magnet. Whether it be little "gifts" brought to me by the cats (semi-alive baby bunnies, mice, birds) or "donated" pets that some jerk dumped off in my neighborhood... just like I'm also a nutso magnet, an old-person magnet, and a tell-me-your-life-story-and-all-your-hardships magnet. Most of which, I don't mind. Except for the nutso magnet. Those usually don't end well. Yeah...

ANYWAY...

Yesterday, I took Corbin to the doctor because I was afraid his cold was turning into an ear infection. But I learned he was pulling at his ears because he's teething. Even though there are no teeth present, or hinting at the contemplation of emerging, he is cramming everything into his mouth and leaving a trail of drool (and snot) every where he crawls.

Oh yeah, he is totally doing the army crawl/drag now! Yay!

The pediatrician, who I totally love, kind of rubbed me the wrong way, however. As I was telling her how his teething and congestion was keeping him up at night, somehow the conversation got brought to the fact that I rock him to sleep. Ignoring the fact that he is going through his 6 month growth spurt, teething, fighting a cold/congestion, and dealing with time change, she automatically assumed his recent night wakings MUST be because I rock him to sleep. I definitely had my share of post-doctor ranting yesterday

I know this can be a parenting hot topic, but in my opinion, it's my business and it's not like I'm feeding my kid slug bugs and roaches. Which, I guess if you think your kid could benefit from the protein, go right ahead. But my point is, I literally got reprimanded for rocking Corbin to sleep before laying him down. Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. If I were still breast feeding, I would be nursing him to sleep each night. I didn't even dare mention that we bed share in the mornings. That would probably warrant a call from CPS or something! There is not one parenting style that fits all. I wish doctors would understand that not everyone is anxious for their baby to sleep through the night, start baby food, or try "Cry It Out." And not everyone wants to bed share/baby wear/breast feed/make their own baby food. Forget the "experts." YOU are your child's expert. At least you should be.

And that's all I got to say about that.

OH YEAH... the squirrel story. And you were probably thinking I'd gone off my rocker (pun totally intended) on that one!

After the aforementioned doctor's appointment, Mom, Corbin, and I went to grab some lunch. When we left the restaurant and walked toward my car, I noticed a very handsome squirrel sitting next to the driver's side front tire of my car. I walked toward my door, totally expecting the squirrel to take off running, but he didn't move. So I got down and looked a little closer, and noticed he had a bloody foot and a bloody nose - no doubt had grazed somebody's moving car. Well, my closer inspection warranted him to slowly (and in case you've never seen a squirrel in person before, "slow" is not in their repertoire of moves) ran under my car. Great. Not wanting to run over him, I honked my horn to get him to move. I walked to the other side to see if he had ran into the bushes, but alas he was sitting on my passenger side tire. I poked him with a stick, for sure that he'd bolt away. No. He just jumped up under the hood of my car.

OH JOY!

I guess being in the south, there is something to say about the whole damsel-in-distress bit. Because, here I was, on my hands and knees, looking under my car, yelling at a squirrel. Ok maybe that was less damsel-in-distress and more psycho-squirrel-lady. A nice man came over and asked if I needed help, and after telling him the story, he left and returned with a metal pipe. Quite honestly, I was a little frightened that 1. he was going to wallop the squirrel and 2. he was going to wallop my car in the process. But he just poked around and made some noise and eventually the squirrel jumped down.

Then he jumped back up.

Now, I want you to put yourself in my shoes for a minute. It's freezing cold outside. Mom is in the car with an impatient, overly-tired, crying Corbin. I'm standing outside Calhoun's with a complete stranger holding a metal pipe, yelling at a traumatized squirrel who will not leave my car. And I had to pee. After a few more minutes of this, and the failure to actually locate the squirrel, I did the unthinkable. I decided to drive away. DO NOT JUDGE ME!!!

I'm not completely naive. I am well aware Mr. Chippy is now in squirrel heaven. I'm not certain, but I believe even healthy squirrels don't have extensive life spans. I'm not at all fooling myself thinking that Mr. Calhoun squirrel will probably, if not already, die from his injury. So my logic is this: if he survives the car ride, at least he will be warm when he finally does die. If he doesn't survive the car ride, at least his death will be quick. Yes, I gave this some thought before I left the parking lot.

I am thankful that it is going to be very cold this week. Because I do not look forward to what toasty dead squirrel smells like in my car.

Now for a totally random, unrelated, too-lazy-to-actually-write-about-it photo catch-up from the past week:

Redecorated the living room. I do not look forward to re-redecorating for Christmas here soon...