Once, when my youngest was two years old, I lost her at the zoo for about a minute and half. The entire minute and a half that I had lost her, I could hear her, I knew where she was, yet I was prevented from getting to her by a sluggish elevator door and a long flight of stairs. There’s a part of me that will FOREVER be running down that LOOOONG flight of steps, hollering her name, listening to her cry, and thinking to myself: It only takes ONE SECOND for someone to grab her. ONE SECOND. Oh God! Oh God, God, GOD!!!
Luckily, in this instance, a zoo volunteer had already reached her and was standing with her looking around for me, understanding that the wild-banshee-type shrieking she and everyone in the vicinity could hear was THIS KID’S MOTHER. I arrived moments later, shaking and breathless, and gathered my baby into my arms, and the zoo-volunteer smiled at me and walked off. And then I strapped my kid into her stroller and wouldn’t let her out for the rest of the afternoon no matter how much she fussed. And when people in our group tried to make pleasant conversation with me, I’d stare blankly at them and nod vaguely, no longer having the ability to comprehend or make small talk of the mommy variety. And we got through the day, and she’s fine. Doesn’t really remember it. Bears no lasting emotional scars or anything.
But I haven’t taken the kids to the zoo since. It’s like this mental barrier I’m having difficulty getting over:
Zoo + Small Children + Mom Burdened With Cooler and Backpacks = ULTIMATE HORROR!!!
At some point, I’ll get over it and take them to zoo again. Like maybe for a high school graduation present or something.
I know, I know. They’ll be fine. They’re older now. I’ll be fine. Everything Will Be Fine.
But then again… who needs the zoo, really? I mean, we’ve got the Discovery Channel. And the Internet. We can watch exotic animals right here at home. It smells better that way, too.
Oh, well. I could go on and on about this, but that’s not what I wanted to tell you about. What I really want to tell you about is this groundhog that lives under our shed with her four babies.
We first discovered this groundhog mama and her babies about 2 months ago when she first brought them up to daylight to see how tasty the grass in our yard was. We were actually getting ready to go out somewhere when I saw her crossing our yard followed by her four rambunctious little ones. Wanting to get a picture, I very quietly stole upstairs to grab my camera. But the minute I reappeared in the dining room with it, the girls looked at me and said: OOOOHHH!!! What is it? And then they looked out the window and saw those little groundhog babies, and that was the end of it. Out the door they went, and all hell broke loose.
As it is wont to do in my backyard.
From time to time.
So, out the door the kids went, with me trailing along after, and the groundhog mama sort of panicked and ran for it, and assumed that her babies would run along with her, I guess. Within moments, she’d dashed around towards the front yard. Her babies tried to follow her but they couldn’t keep up, and at the last minute they all dashed under our little plastic picnic table and hunkered down. All of them, that is, except for one little guy.
See that little guy over at the right? The one that’s SEPARATING FROM THE GROUP? Who do you think he reminds me of?
If you guessed my youngest daughter on that day at the zoo, you win the GRAND PRIZE. I’m not quite sure what the GRAND PRIZE is yet, but it’s yours. Or it will be, just as soon as I figure out what it is.
Right after I snapped that shot, that little guy scooted even further away from his family and hid himself under the bushes along the side of the house. The girls were both cooing and shrieking with excitement by now, and the cat was Slowly Waking Up From Her ENDLESS Nap to see what was going on. And where was Mama Groundhog?
Oh, yes. Right there. All the way around the front of the house, hiding under my car.
My car, and the long trek back around the side of the house, it all began to take on these surreal aspects of… oh… I don’t know… an elevator, and a long flight of stairs, maybe?
And the sound of my daughters shouting and laughing in the background sounded an awful lot like the din you might hear at the zoo on a summer day, when you desperately want your own voice to RISE ABOVE the noise so that your baby will hear you and know that you are on your way.
And the cat? Why, that was the predator, of course. And IT ONLY TAKES A SECOND. (Well, actually, the cat never really woke up completely. She is, after all, old. And the laziest damn thing I’ve ever met. But just pretend that she was drooling and ready to pounce. My analogy will work much nicer that way.)
I looked that Mama Groundhog in the eye. Honey, I said to her. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. Let me help you. I retreated, gathered up the (still half-asleep) cat and the kids, and herded everyone back into the house. The lone little groundhog had by now tried to cross the porch and get back under the shed, but got stuck halfway there and was now a frozen tableau of terror that looked like this:
I gave him a wide berth and went inside and waited. And after a while, the Mama Groundhog managed to come back around and pick up the three that were huddled under the picnic table, plus this Wild Child, and take them all back to the safety of the Den Under Our Shed.
With the excitement over, the girls were dispatched back to their previous task, which was finding all the library books and piling them up on the table for a final count before we returned them. After that, it was time for everyone to use the bathroom. I looked out the window one more time before we left and saw this:
She’d taken them all back home, and then started bringing them up one by one to eat. She stayed right next to each baby and never let her guard down again. I would have tried to talk to her, but I knew better. She was way too frazzled to make any attempt at conversation. I’ve had my own close-call, after all. I know what it’s like. I gave her one last nod, and took my kids off to the library for the day.
They’re all still under my shed, as far as I know. Sometimes, late in the evening when I’m doing the day’s dishes, I see the Mama Groundhog from the kitchen window. I wish I could tell her how I admire her for her good mothering. How there was never a chance that the cat could have ever caught them. How proud of her I am that she’s managed to return to the zoo so quickly.
Psst. I think maybe those are groundhogs, not hedgehogs. I thought hedgehogs were more.. prickly.
But hysterical and completely relateable story anyway. I lost my son in a crowded audience for a dolphin show once, for like.. 47 seconds or something. But now crowds and kids don’t mix without me freaking out and grabbing handfuls of my kids’ hair to keep them near me.
Aaaack! I cannot take the thought of losing track of either of my babies and pray that I can avoid this lesson. Regular Brother-in-law and I did have a panicked moment in the store one day when he said to me from behind the cart, “where’s RegularNiece??!!” and I whirled around frantically only to gaze at him and levelly reply, “in the cart.” May I never come any closer than that! Great blog – I thought they were groundhogs too. I was so excited to see a hedgehog, straight from Wind in the Willows – you had me at hello.
xo
RegSis
Heather, you’re right. It is a groundhog (or woodchuck), not a hedgehog. I’m all… DUH!!!!
Good Lordy, Have I got a missing kiddo tale.
Baby Boy was sitting on the floor of the dressing room I was using when he was about 4 or 5. We were in a shopping mall. He was really too old to be in the ladies dressing room but too young to wait outside by himself, and I was a single Mom at the time. . . so what to do? Anyway he was supposed to be turning away and not looking at my underpants while I changed. While I changed as fast as I could, he slipped under the door and ran away, laughing the entire time.
So I had to get out of the dressing room (in the store’s clothes, with the sensor tag on them) and go look for him. He had completely disappeared. I was panicking all over the store and finally realized that he had left the store, Lord only knows why. So I headed out the store and, of course, the security alarm went off. So the security guard grabbed my arm and I’m yelling and screaming “I can’t find my son!” So he used his walkie talkie and calls the secuirty desk, where another security guard rudely reports “Some little black boy can’t find his Mom.”
Anyway, it all worked out, but poor Baby Boy was stuck looking at my underpants for many many many years after it was developmentally healthy, because I refused to let him out of my sight in any shopping malls.
Now we both despise malls. We’ll take Mom & Pop stores, thank you very much!
This post made mw howl. This has to be worthy of some sort of blog award. Excellent.
Psst. Did you know the code for missing child in Target is “Code Yellow?”
Oh yes I remember it well, but in my case she was lost for over half an hour in a large shopping centre! I think I nearly died that day! Its been 18 years and she’s now 20 and you know I NEVER lost any of her siblings or her again!
Great post, loved those groundhogs very cute story!
Mom #1, now THAT’S a story for the books! And Karisma, man, I would have been FREAKING! And L, yes, I’m howling too, mostly over my constant inability to correctly identify this animal. Hedgehog, groundhog, woodchuck…. I’m all like: HUH????
I dunno, it’s sort of brown and furry, and all I know for sure is it ain’t a rat or a beaver.
This isn’t the first time I’ve posted about groundhogs, and it also isn’t the first time someone has posted in that I might have misidentified it. 
And ya know, I never knew that about Target. Now my ears’ll be fine tuned for it every time I’m there.
Regularmom, I think I was the irritating know-it-all then too, only you weren’t wrong. You said woodchuck, I said groundhog, and they’re the same thing. I only remember because I was laughing so hard over your “how much ground would a groundhog hog” comment.
So yeah.. I need to get a life.
Heather, you make me LOL.
No stress. I actually enjoy the way you say: “Pssst.” It’s just this perfect-sounding Blog-Stage-Whisper.
And you were right this time. It definitely was not a hedgehog. I think, in my mind, I half-remembered that last time, and all I knew was that there were two names for this animal. One was groundhog, and I couldn’t quite remember what the other name was, so instead of looking it up, I just pounced on the first animal name that popped into my head: hedgehog.
Why I didn’t just stick with groundhog is something we’ll never know.
For those who are wondering what we’re talking about, here’s that first post on groundhogs or woodchucks or whatever they are;
http://regular-mom.com/2007/05/05/another-unexpected-guest/
And to clarify: the first time I published this post, I had written that these animals were hedgehogs, which they are not. I’ve since edited the post and changed all references of hedgehogs to groundhogs.