Moosed To Death

Alaskans have learned to live side by side with the wildlife. It is not uncommon to be driving on a busy highway and see a huge moose eating some weeds (and/or leftover human refuse) at the side of the road. It's even illegal to shout obscenities at the moose. Seriously.

If a police officer sees you taunting a moose, he can (and will!) write you a ticket. It makes sense, I don't want a pissed-off moose running into my car on his way to ramming the guy who made a joke about his MaMa.

I could die that way.
I don't want to die that way.

We went for a walk with the dogs in a leashless dog-walking park. While there, we passed by a MaMa moose and her two babies. The first time we passed them, we didn't see her babies. We did see them on the way back. Now, MaMa moose are terribly protective of their babies (Understandable!) and will stop at nothing to ensure their safety. That's why the second time I saw the moose, I nearly wet my new maternity pants. Especially when Zoe decided that walking by silently the first time was enough. She yelled at this moose on the way back to our car. I can just imagine if she was speaking english, she would have been saying

"Hey! What are you? Why you so big! Lemme smell you!"

Harmless banter, really. But I like living! And moosies, MaMa moosies in particular, scare me! A LOT! I'll admit it! And you can poke fun if you feel like it. But if you were less than ten feet away from a MaMa moose and her two babies, with your nosy dog yelling at them, you'd be scared too!

Since I'm alive, I can report that the votes are at 5 for boy and 4 for girl. We'll see soon enough. I wanted to share this story.

A little girl in my class noticed me hiking up my maternity pants and vainly trying to tie that "adjustable" string tighter. She looks at me with her head tilted and asks, "Miss Laura? Why are you doing that?" I explain that my pants are too big. "Why are your pants too big?" I then explain that I need big pants so my baby has room to grow. "Oh. Your baby girl is inside you?" I laugh and say, "Well, I don't know if it's a boy or girl yet, but yes. Baby is inside me." She looks at me quite quizzically and replies, "It's a baby girl."

Kids are funny. And I don't know how much credit to give to her "intuition". Her long-time teacher just went on maternity leave after giving birth to a girl. The teacher probably told the kids she was having a girl. So it's possible that this kid thinks that all babies inside tummies are girls. I've had a handful of kids, seeming just as intuitive, pointedly remark on my baby boy growing in my belly. Kids that weren't told that I'm pregnant.

I can't wait to find out. I read a lot into kids' responses because I REALLY wanna know!

NOT knowing is making me itch!!!