The Great Squirrel War

Holding It All Together - by Amy McCollom - Squirrel Wars

It all started early this fall. Zippy first made his appearance with his brother Sneaky around the first week in August. I'm not talking about just any unwanted visitor that has darkened my door. I'm not even talking about relatives that move in and grow roots. I'm talking about the dreaded Great Squirrel War of 2009.

If it wasn't for that incident two years ago, I would have looked out my patio doors and joined the little people in saying, "Awww, would you look at that cute little creature in our yard!" But I knew better. I saw the destruction and damage those nasty little creatures can do to an over-stuffed floral patio lawn chair cushion. I picked up the cotton myself. I picked out the new cushions, still seething from their blatant vandalism. I remembered everything.

At first I would peck on the glass and yell at them. Then, as I got braver, I would actually open the patio door and yell all the louder. Sometimes that worked, but sometimes it didn't. Sometimes the hairy little creatures would sit on my patio furniture, just gnawing away at whatever they had in their tiny little hands, paying no attention to my ranting.

Now normally I'm a pretty kind-hearted soul. I give to charities, I help old ladies cross the street, and I even throw cornbread out for the birds. I've been known to leave bowls of cat food in my yard for wandering felines. Not intending to, I've invited squirrels into my yard for a buffet.

Squirrels can be quite pesky though. Did you know that squirrels often cause power outages? Squirrels have actually brought down the NASDAQ stock market twice and have been responsible for a string of power outages at the University of Alabama. Since their teeth never stop growing, they have a propensity to chew and love to sharpen their teeth on tree limbs, power lines, or parts of your house. They also like to burrow, and have caused breaches in dams and levees. We're not talking about Alvin and Simon here.

According to Wikipedia, squirrels make excellent pets because of their high intelligence that compares with dogs. Supposedly they can be easily trained if raised from a baby. But according to my dad and my Grandpa Harv, they taste pretty good with gravy and biscuits. I like chicken, myself.

I don't think too many people eat them anymore, at least around here. Maybe that’s because the American Heart Association found them to be high in cholesterol. Or maybe they've become so popular in children's television and movies that everyone thinks they are harmless and cute. I just think they are ornery.

There is one particular squirrel that runs in front of my car every morning as I drive past the park to deliver the kids to school. For some reason this squirrel, who we fondly call Stumpy, is missing half of his tail. I can only imagine the kind of mischief he must have gotten himself into to render him tail-challenged. Perhaps his habit of chasing cars proved to be more dangerous than he supposed. He's probably Zippy's cousin.

I saw Zippy one morning as I pulled into my drive way. He was in my front yard landscaping, knocking over my gnome figurine with his tiny hands. I took pictures. No one would have believed me otherwise. I have found empty corncobs on the patio, and gnaw-marks around the base of my cedar yard furniture. So far my seat cushions have remained intact. Zippy beats most birds to the popcorn and breadcrumbs I leave for them, he dances tauntingly around my yard and then darts off to safety through my chain link fence, and he may have won this war for now. But look out Zippy. I'm getting a dog.

Thanksgiving

Holding It All Together - by Amy McCollom - Thanksgiving

I sat down tonight and planned to write about all the things I was thankful for. I was hoping to inspire someone to re-evaluate their life and notice the small things that they should be thankful for, and not just overlook. Little things like their health and their home and their jobs. Things that matter but we've gotten accustomed to taking them for granted.

But as I sat here I began to think about my life, and it started to weigh heavy on my mind. Last week my mother had open heart surgery. She's doing good, however there are some complications. Now she has become diabetic and has to take shots of insulin and test her blood everyday. She's weak and shaky and can't do the things she would like to do, such as make her bed, or walk the aisles of the grocery store. It's added a bit more worry to my already busy life. I check on her daily and feel like I almost have another child to look after. "How's your sugar today?" "Have you been drinking sweet tea again?" "You know you shouldn't be eating more than one cookie."

Then I thought about my kids. They're not perfect, but I love them anyway. When we went to visit my mom in the hospital, five-year-old Rosa looked out the eighth story window and screamed, " Look, you can see Disney World from here!" She also thinks she can breathe under water, and will grow wings some day. Rosa had plastic surgery to remove a large hemangioma from the back of her head last year, and has trouble with nerve pain until I can barely brush her hair. I usually try and use my fingers instead of the hard bristles. They say in time this should get better.

Rudy, Rosa's twin, was born with a hole in his heart. He got pneumonia at five weeks old and nearly died. He was in ICU for over a week. At his last heart sono, the hole had apparently closed up on it's own. Many prayers had gone up for that little boy.

Portia is eight now, and I've gotten used to her little differences. When the doctors casually told me, as if it was an ingrown toe nail, that she was autistic, I didn't know what I should feel. Fear gripped me because I had only heard the worse case scenarios about autistic children. And then when she was diagnosed with Tourettes Syndrome too, I was beside myself. Her tics can be annoying for someone who doesn't understand her. But her love for reading and her excitement about science makes me forget about all that for a while.

During a recent occupational therapy appointment for Portia, I was sitting in the waiting room feeling a bit sorry for myself. Why did my child have to come here every two weeks to learn to get her feet off the ground and build upper arm strength? Why was my daughter unable to ride a bike or tie her shoes? Why did she need to be taught how to hop on one foot and do jumping jacks? Then Mikey came in with his mother.

Mikey, not his real name of course, is a little boy about the same age as Portia. He is in a wheel chair and drools constantly, wearing a light blue baby's bib around his neck. He has a tube coming out of his throat and makes gurgling sounds that his mother said were words. His mother was smiling. She wasn't scowling or sitting quietly like me with a blank look on her face and an unopened magazine in her lap while she waited. She laughed and wiped Mikey's face. And I felt about an inch tall. Here moments earlier I had been feeling sorry for myself because my daughter wasn't perfect. And while I'm sure there were days that Mikey's mom didn't want to get out of bed to face another day of what she had to go through, on this particular day there was nothing but love and thankfulness on her face. God speaks in a still small voice.

So this Thanksgiving I plan to look at the positive side of everything. Our house is too small, but that makes it warm and cozy. Our kids aren't perfect, but that makes them unique. Our van is old, but dependable. My mom had surgery, but she made it through.

And if I run out of positive things, I have a book called 14,000 Things To Be Happy About by Barbara Ann Kipfer. It's a great book, and I highly recommend it when you need to get happy in a hurry.

So in conclusion, remember this. It's ok if you burned the turkey, or the pumpkin pie is runny. It's ok if you are going through a crisis, or things in your life aren't the way you have hoped. Keep moving. Keep hoping. Keep smiling. Keep praying. And keep holding it all together. It could always be worse, Love.