whatever animals she managed to hide from our view. Because of her extreme fondness of animals, I have some rather interesting stories to share.
Last spring, my daughter and her friend found a baby, abandoned chipmunk in our backyard. Automatically, my daughter's in love and wants to adopt. The brakes go off in my head, and I'm thinking, "Whoa! How much is this going to cost, and who's going to ultimately take care of it?" "Oh, yes. That would be me, so No!" Of course, my daughter argues with me multiple times, but the answer is "No." So, she puts it in a shoe box, so we can take it to Animal Care and Control the next day.
The next day comes, and my daughter wears a winter coat to school, which I thought a little strange, especially since it's spring and she's pretty warm natured. But I don't worry too much about it. I'm in a hurry and need to get to work. Well, I get a call from the school about her not feeling well. My husband also gets a call, and he's informed that she brought a little friend to school, the chipmunk, which she managed to smuggle in her winter coat pocket. So, he goes and gets the chipmunk, and I go to pick her up, a little later. She didn't feel well because she had stayed up caring for the chipmunk all night long. I'm sitting in the office, and my daughter and her chipmunk friend were all the talk of the office and I'm quite sure the teachers' lounge and possibly the entire school. I was actually quite amused by the situation.
Next story, last summer, we went on a walk out in the country. Our neighbors down the road have about 5 kittens that my daughter is in love with. We go to see them about daily. One day, they decide to follow her home, and I'm pretty alarmed. I'm already swimming in pet responsibilities as it is. So, I'm trying to figure out how to get these kittens home. My daughter walks to and fro, but they keep following her and won't go back to their home. I tell Amber to walk towards the kittens' house, while I go home to get my son and the van. We drive back. My son grabs the kittens to put in the van. While he puts some in, others jump out. It's mass chaos. Then, I observe my son's eye has swelled up. It's all red & puffy, as if he'd been in a fight. So, I'm alarmed about that. It turned out to be an extreme allergic reaction to the cats. Then, this car pulls up, and this woman asks to see if all is well. Her dog leaps out the window and chases the kittens. She manages to get her dog back and after they depart, we manage to get the kittens as close to their house as possible and head for home.
Another story took place in New Orleans. I was visiting my mom, and my daughter found a lizard at her house. She loves this lizard so much that she wanted to skip going to dinner and the festivals, to play with it. We made her go though, and during the festivities, she actually spent most of the time looking for more lizards. Later, at my mom's, I was packing, getting ready to go back home, and Amber insisted that she pack her own luggage, which normally she wouldn't want anything to do with. My mom and I are looking at each other and decide it would be a good idea to check on the lizard friend out in the garage. Not surprisingly, it was not there. It was buried in my luggage. I'm sure Airport Security would have had a heyday with that one!
So, that is not all of my animal stories, by any means, just some of the more interesting ones. The list of stories really never ends because as my daughter sees a new animal, she wants a new pet. And when mom and dad say "no", that's when the animal smuggling adventures begin. Whoever said parenting couldn't be interesting? Challenging but interesting? Oh, and by the way, my cat is expecting. (sigh)
