Do You Know Where Your Instincts Are?

Okay, I imagine myself as a fairly intelligent person. I can spell words over five letters, though I always wondered why vomiting has only one 't.' I can balance a checkbook. I can even manage new recipes with overly curious and too-zealous-to-cook toddlers tagging along. So do I blame the recent 'Oh Shit!' moments of 'Duh?' on lack of sleep or poor sleep or some mental  erosion of the thought process? I'd like to think I could still act in an emergency, at least adequately enough to avoid harm to myself or those around me... I'd like to think...

So last week I brought the kids to Spring Brooks Park in Bedford. We're in the wading pool area and there's a mom with a bunch of kids around 3-5 and one 15 month-old. Yeah... Don't worry; everyone was okay. She parenting the 3-year-old when a woman yells from across (across!) the water, "Oh my God! Is he okay?!"
I'm 3 feet from the little one who's face down in the water with his little feet scrambling to grab the bottom. It's only about 18 inches deep at this point. I stared; in my mind I stuttered with what action to take.
Pick him up you idiot!
His mother crossed twice the distance (yes, she was that distant) and grabbed him. He was panicked but perfectly fine. She was astounded it even happened. I didn't know who to slap first. Thank God for the infant instinct to hold one's breath when water hits one's face. It's how those diehard swim instructors train 6 month-olds to swim.

Okay, I'm not too hard on myself for that non-reaction, but I'd have thought I'd have done better. I think what held me back was, "Oh, he'll freak if a stranger picks him up." Any thought besides Pick him up! is stupid really but I was over it soon enough. After all, it was one event. Well, then today happened.

I was cooking breakfast, scrambled eggs (might've had a few brain cells in the pan), when I noticed a little smoke. Looked like something was burning off the element. Lifted to check because what if it was something bigger, right? Nope, nothing. Eggs halfway there: tons of smoke.
Crap! Pull the pan off the- Holy F$@%!
A little campfire erupted on our stove. I can only say little since Jesse campfires are, well... So I brain-stutter and then turn off the element and try to formulate a thought while realizing the fire extinguisher is packed up downstairs.
Put... something... over... find... metal...
 "JESSE!!"
Thank God he hadn't put his earplugs in for the day to sleep.
He came out groggily, "Wha...?"
"Fire on the stove!"
"Oh Shit!" He whipped out our big metal mixing bowl and smothered it in a second. Then the smoke detector went off.
"Thanks," I muttered to it.
He yanked it down, pulling out the batteries and opened all the windows and turned on the fan. I explained that I hadn't seen anything on the element or the frying pan to catch fire. He then lifted the bowl with oven mitts to find a pool of oil or grease in the base. Neither of us expected that. Needless to say the stove got pulled apart and cleaned tonight.

So next week we'll be away at Creation Northeast. May God help whoever has to save me or those around me then! Who knows? Maybe I'll have found my instincts by then. Best of luck to all in my presence!

Kitty Litter

Well, some of you might have heard we've 'rescued' a kitten. Really Jesse just got one and hid it in the backyard until I came home. Okay... supposedly she appeared on the back steps and really she's too cute to pass up. My daughter says she was a gift from Samuel (our sponsor child in Brazil) or that maybe she's Samuel's kitty and got lost. Yeah... cute honey but not so much.  Long story short: did some research, figured she's about 8 weeks old, fed her some tuna (had nothing else and it was nighttime), made her a shoebox bed, and... drum roll... she has a name. It's over folks.

I was, however, the voice of reason and I did demand signs be made and posted about a 'Found Kitten.' I posted them this morning and we have a vet appointment Thursday afternoon. If we don't hear from anyone by then, we'll go ahead and call her our own. I kind of think she's already doing that. I know Bekah and Jesse are anyway. We have Kitten Chow and a disposable litter box now. I told the kids she was visiting until her mommy and daddy find her. If they didn't find her then we'd keep her but we couldn't buy her things until then. I am taken, but I'm also thinking ahead.

Trouble is, we wanted to have a dog and cat at the same time to let them equally become part of the family. We also wanted to wait for the kids to be old enough to help take care of them. Did I lose out here? Yeah kind of since I now want a puppy, but I don't imagine that's going to appear on the back steps anytime soon. Oh well, one pet at a time I guess. Really I wanted a dog and Jesse wanted a cat... I suppose the boy was overdue for a break.