Other Mothers' Sons

The countdown has begun; I’m leaving for the Romantic Times Readers' Convention with my rather nervous, but still cute as pie cover contestant son in…let’s see…four days. Plus, I have a couple of books to write, a few horses to train, a mare in foal, and a house that’s about to be condemned by the health department.

So, when my teenage daughter ran up to me with a gaping baby bird in hand and asked if I wanted to be a humanitarian, I promptly told her, "No. No, I don’t. I want to be a cranky old woman who refuses to allow another distraction into her life, especially if said distraction has to be fed, conversed with, or nurtured in any conceivable way. I’m overloaded. Can’t you see I’m overloaded?"

It was rude, I know, but my bright little daughter should have known better than to ask. After all, she wasn’t all that thrilled when, last Christmas, she found ten newly-whelped puppies in her bathroom…placenta, dog slobber et al. Not to mention the ferret we adopted not so long before that. It was gallumping around a parking lot looking lost (and a little carnivorous), so we bundled it up in a coat and took it home.

Ferrets, as you might know, are not the sweetest smelling animals in the universe, so what better place to keep it than your beloved daughter’s bathroom. It’s better than the kitchen. Growing up on a cattle ranch in North Dakota, I spent many a blustery winter morning sharing my breakfast with newborn calves.

But we don’t have calves. We have dogs, horses, an occasional ferret, and cats. Ragdoll cats to be specific. One of them has kittens, or rather ‘kitten’. The other was about to ‘kitten’, so a pre-fledging just didn’t fit into the master plan. I told my bird-loving daughter as much and I was firm…for about three seconds, until I looked down into that gigantic, yellowed billed baby bird maw. At which time I believe I said something eloquent like, "Oh crap," shoveled the ugly little thing into a box, and toted it into the kitchen.

This morning, Serenity, above-mentioned mother-cat-to-be, gave birth to six pink-pawed, rat-like kittens. Six is a passel of kittens. They’ll need some tending. There is also the baby bird to consider, which, by the by, has to be fed mushed up puppy chow from a syringe at three hour intervals. I shoved all eight little critters into Tara’s micro sized bathroom. One big happy family.

As for me, I’m escaping to Daytona in four days to lie on the beach, party with the CosmoChix, and ogle other mothers’ sons. Tee hee. My bright little daughter’s going to miss me something fierce…at three hour intervals.

Lois' "Tempting the Wolf" hits shelves July 25th. She's too humble to tell you, but the rest of us aren't. -Cchx