A couple of nights ago, I bolted awake at 4:00 am and didn't know why. After determining that no children were wandering the house, being ill, or talking in their sleep, I realized it was because I had an anxious knot in my stomach. So instead of trying to go back to sleep like I obviously should have, I started trying to figure out what was bothering me. I ran through the possibilities...
Was it our crumbling economy? No, that had been making me feel nauseous periodically but not at that particular moment. The threat of Palin as Vice President? Nope, I'm dealing with that through humor unless it becomes reality, in which case everyone in the world should be up all night worrying about it.
Something to do with Jacob maybe? Speech therapy? Reading? Making friends? I could feel my mind circling it, and then I got it - The Woodchuck Incident! My youngest son almost got attacked by a potentially rabid woodchuck and refused to admit that it was a problem.
The day before, we were at our friends' house, enjoying the weather and roaming around outside. The pack of four young boys were in high spirits and getting into lots of innocent yet alarming trouble. The saying "Boys will be boys," comes to mind, but only if it is actually a euphemism for "Know the quickest route to the nearest ER at all times." We rounded them out of a few dicey situations, then they all ran down the long slope of the front yard. It seemed like they were finally playing in the nice big grassy area that they should have been in all along.
Until we saw the woodchuck. Towards the bottom of the hill, they had stopped and were all staring at a woodchuck. My six year old son Jacob was by far the closest to it, and it wasn't running away. In fact, it seemed to be baring its teeth. And as my older son Alex told me later, "It was kind of jumping around a little." Though Alex apparently made the wise pronouncement to the group that they should not pet it, Jacob was not moving away from it, even once we started yelling at them. I finally did the scary screech that I didn't know I had in me until becoming a mother of boys, and Jacob backed up a few feet, which seemed to snap the woodchuck out of defiant mode and into flight, since it finally ambled away.
My friend and I both talked to all the boys about not cornering wild animals because it may make them behave in unexpected ways, as well as the fact that any animal behaving abnormally and not running away from people could be sick with rabies. We told them not to go near wild animals. Three boys said okay and looked reasonably contrite. But not Jacob.
Jacob said, "Okay, but I might forget."
"You have to remember, " I said.
"I thought it was a beaver, " said Jacob.
"It wasn't a beaver. It was a woodchuck. But either way, you don't go near untamed animals."
"But I might forget."
"You have to remember. It's to keep safe. It's important. Rabies is really really bad. Really bad."
"Are you sure it wasn't a beaver?"
"Yes, I'm sure, but it doesn't matter. You still need to stay away from wild animals! You remember not to go in the street alone, and other things that keep you safe, don't you? It's the same thing. It's a rule. You have to remember."
"But I still might forget."
Hit repeat, dozens of times.
How do I counter this? Either I watch him 24/7, always ready to remind him to avoid potentially rabid animals, or else? At some point I fell back asleep, before reaching the "There are no woodchucks in Brooklyn and therefore we should never have left" thought cycle, and having come up with no magic way to make him remember to stay away from wild animals.
The next day, I took the boys and their bikes to the school yard. We were walking across a field and we saw, you guessed it, a woodchuck. It took one look at us and waddled away faster than you'd think it could move.
I told Jacob, "See, that's what a normal woodchuck does when it sees people coming near it. What do you do if you see a woodchuck?"
"Mommy, I remember! Don't go near it." Jacob said in a proud and only slightly impatient voice.
Phew. I think.
I bet if you described the ultra-painful shots they give you in your stomach for rabies, that might help him remember...
Posted by: Aury Wallington | October 02, 2008 at 07:45 PM
I actually skipped the shot discussion and went straight to the threat of death by rabies, and then my older son Alex, who just read a book about a wolf pack, added in relevant foaming at the mouth details! BTW, the shots are still large and painful, but they aren't in the stomach anymore - they're in the arm now. I know this because a bat was in a friend's house overnight and the whole family needed to get the series of rabies shots. Sounds like I live in the heart of darkness here in Westchester, doesn't it?
Posted by: Marnie Piazza | October 03, 2008 at 09:23 AM