AHHHH!!! Attack of the mommy! **UPDATED

Ok, SERIOUSLY?!?! What is it with things attacking me this summer? First the bug puking experience, then the squirrels, now dive-bombing cicadas? Every time I go outside these days I get attacked by a stupid, albeit probably harmless, but very large and noisy, cicada. Yesterday I freaked out in the gas station when a fly flew by my face, ducking and waving my arms about. My neighbor, also the cashier, was like, "whoa, relax. It's just a fly." Yeah, whatever. Just a fly. Humph. Not what I'm thinking about as some unidentified object is flying at my face.

No wonder my poor boy is so naughty. His mom is too afraid to take him outside.

OH, yeah, I probably should have explained that other stuff. Puking and squirrels.

The bug thing.

In short, I swallowed a bug and I puked my guts out. In my front yard, while holding one of my children. And due to lovely side effects of having multiple children, in addition to heredity, it also meant I peed my pants. Really peed my pants. You know, down the legs, in the shoes. Puddles. Mm hm. Yes. That kind. We're not talking sprinkles, here.

Maybe all these bugs (2) flying in my mouth is a sign I need to close my mouth. It actually happened again yesterday (the swallowing bug part) when I was outside working on the pool. I somehow managed to talk myself down from a freak-out as to avoid any puking and peeing that was about to ensue.

The squirrel thing.

This summer we bought one of those cool blue bubble pools you see everyone has. It's been a lot of fun, but it requires maintenance to keep it clean and experimentation in finding the right balance of chemicals. While we were gone on vacation I hadn't put enough chlorine tabs in, so things were needing my attention. Was it the green color of the water that fooled them, I don't know. But one morning I woke up and while getting breakfast I saw something in the pool. Upon further investigation, I found this.

Um, yeah, Gross!

I scooped it out with a shovel, and told my hubs we were draining the pool and we'd start over next year. Well, he thought that was ridiculous and we'd just clean it (the pool, not the squirrel) and it'd be fine. Fine. Great. Whatever.

Actually, I needed to add a bunch more shock treatment - I ran out (yes, please note the green color of the water. That is the actual color. Like I said, we were on vacation.) - so I did just that. I shocked the daylights out of it. Took care of the green color and any heebeegeebees I was going to get from dead squirrels. However, before I could get that shock treatment, another squirrel jumped on in. I saw it swimming laps while I was making supper. Well, I couldn't just leave it in there to die. That would be cruel. But squirrels are a little, uh, squirrel-y, and I was worried about 1) how to get it out and 2) getting bit by a rabid squirrel. I called Kong, as he was at work, and his advice was to get it out with the pool net. Yeah, and then what? Have a crazed squirrel stuck in my net? No thanks. I quickly scanned the yard for something and found a 2x4. Probably a 12 foot 2x4, but who's counting. Not a smart choice on my part, but I was thinking rescue and rabies, not what's the weight of this board when wet. I also was still on the phone with my hubs, which probably didn't help either. lol.

Worried about popping a hole in the pool, I thought, well, I'll just put this deflated floaty on the end, which didn't stay on. Naturally. And the squirrel kept swimming to the floating but deflated floaty and trying to jump off it out of the pool. Wasn't working. And it didn't want anything to do with the board I had. It was growing tired and more frantic as it got closer and closer to drowning. I also was growing more tired and frantic as my attempts at rescue were not working, further complicated by my small children running to my side, and my screaming at them to "get. back, get on. the deck." It was a lot of excitement. I mean, just what I needed was to be pregnant and home alone with my 4 small children and get attacked by a freaked out squirrel.

Eventually I managed to fling it out of the pool, where it looked around, made sure no one was attacking it, and then set it's head down on the grass and just layed there. FOR HOURS. And I quickly ushered everyone back in the house so I could finish supper.

For a while the thing just laid in the grass and I could see it flick it's tail or breathe, but then that seemed to stop. Great, another dead squirrel in my yard. Oh, well. I did my duty, performed my feeble attempts at heroism.

After supper and while the kids were otherwise engaged, I ventured out onto the deck to get a closer look, but the stinkin' thing wasn't there. I thought for sure it was dead, but apparently it just needed 3 hours to recuperate from the ordeal. Well, all the better. At least it was gone.

I still can't figure out why suddenly we have squirrels jumping into our pool. It isn't like the tree overlaps and they were just falling in. They actually had to purposefully jump in. See?...

Other people with more pool experience than I have said that that's not uncommon, creatures in the pool. Sorry, it's uncommon for me, and despite the fact that the whole ordeal lasted about 4 minutes, I was fairly traumatized. I couldn't sleep that whole night, for worrying about stupid squirrels on a suicide mission. Then, I figured out that they didn't jump in there when the floaties were in there (which I had taken out when cleaning). Easy solution. We now ALWAYS keep the floaties in the pool. Viola! No more squirrels. (They also seem to be strangely absent from my yard, too.)

**sigh. I give up. Next year we are definitely going to have to put the pool farther from the tree. Kayla went out and discovered another one, this evening. AGHHHHH!