just an afternoon walk...or so we thought. bum Bum BUM!

It was one of those beautiful overcast days that I just love - it had rained that morning and so everything smelled clean and all the colors looked deeper. The sky was still a pleasant canopy of grey-blue clouds, but the air was a cool warm. This is the sort of day where I feel like anything can happen. Like that feeling I had that time when I was a kid and went to bed in my own room, but woke up in the back of the family station wagon - the seats put down and the blankets spread out to make a surprisingly comfortable bed - next to a sleeping Jamie, and Mom turned around and told me that we were half way to Disneyland.

Well, Bill had the car, so I couldn't drive to disneyland. Going for a walk with Wyatt and Stroller in tow was the next best thing.

So I got Wyatt all bundled up in the new jacket Grandma Tammy had just bought for him and a blanket, and buckled him into the stroller. Wyatt feels so big in his stroller because he doesn't have to use his carseat anymore, so he can sit up and face forward and see everything knee-down that adults never pay attention to. When we go on walks, Wyatt is either super quiet, just taking everything in; or he's babbling to the trees, the cars, the sidewalk, the bugs...

This time he was silent. I think he got that 'anything can happen' feeling, too.

So we took the long way to get the mail, and then we walked to the back of our little neighborhood where there is a secret walkway. A sidewalk that goes between our neighborhood and the next one that goes by the ponds and the tall grasses. It would spit us out on the other side of our neighborhood - right by our house! Perfect! So we took it. Poems by Robert Frost about roads less taken turned in my head, and I felt very adventurous!

As soon as we got to the first pond, I noticed a little cloud of gnats above us. No big deal, you just duck and walk through! Well...they weren't gnats. By the time I realized that we were in the middle of a cloud of mosquitos, and ducking really doesn't help, it was too late.

I hate mosquitos. They seem to love my blood only slightly less than they love my dad's. But the thought of them sucking on Wyatt made me crazy. "MY BABY!" I yelled - partially pleading, partially defying those little blood-suckers - threw the stroller's sun shield down in front of Wyatt's face, and ran.

Mine was no jogging stroller. The front wheels of Wyatt's ride bumped and spun and jiggled and skidded - too bad! No time! Too many mosquitos! - and we blundered along the path at top speed until I felt that the mosquito cloud was safely behind us. As soon as I started to slow down...another cloud appeared not far ahead. And THIS one seemed to know we were coming! In one militial movement, the mosquitos all left-faced and began to march toward us.

So off we ran, again! Bumping, spinning, jiggling and skidding past cloud after cloud of disgusting little vampires! I kept waving my arms around Wyatt's head to make sure no mosquitos that may have dared break rank found their way down to my sweet baby's tempting virgin skin. As I ran for our lives, I thought..."well, this makes sense. Here we have stagnant ponds, and it's spring. I should have guessed there'd be mosquitos!"

I turned the corner...the end of the path! Light at the end of the tunnel! And then I heard it. A deep, menacing HOOOONK. I looked down and there, right before the end of the sidewalk and our ticket to freedom was a gaggle of geese. Sitting there on the sidewalk STARING at me as if to say, "I dare you to try it". Only slightly less daunting was the pile after pile of goose poop that covered the sidewalk they were sitting on.

"Excuse me, Mr. Goose!" I yelled as I ran, obvously dilusional in my desparation. In answer, the goose stood up, stretched it's neck toward me, opened it's mouth, and spread it's wings. I could almost hear him say, "you want a piece of this?" Okay, I thought. I can outrun the stupid geese - but if one of those things takes a nip at my baby! Roast Goose!

I ran...the goose didn't move...I swerved into the gravel to avoid the goose, his gang, and their poop...we passed them...jumped back onto the sidewalk, and there were DUCKS in the way!

Ducks, however, are not satan with wings, and they moved out of the way for us and tipped their hats as we passed.

We made it! Off the trail of misadventure! We were on a normal sidewalk with a normal road by us and our house just a few yards ahead! I stopped, panting, and pushed the stroller visor out of Wyatt's way. I checked him all over. He was completely fine, and enjoying himself tremendously. Success.

Then I looked up.

MOSQUITO CLOUD! I ran all the way to our house, fumbled with the keys a-la Better Off Dead, and finally got us in to the house with the door closed behind us. We were finally safe! I grabbed Wyatt and we went into the kitchen...

...there on the sliding door window were dozens of MOSQUITOS! They had us surrounded! Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" came to mind.

"This is nothing like Disneyland" I thought, and closed the curtains.