Pretty Bird

Assuming the weather isn't treacherous, I try to take the kids on a walk every night after dinner.  It breaks up the final "witching hours" of the day, and it's good to get outside.

Last week we were doing our general routine, and I was outside trying to get Casey strapped into his stroller.  He wasn't being cooperative and the straps were all tangled and in the midst of all this, I hear Braden: 

Mommy, look at this!

Hold on Braden, Mommy's busy trying to get Casey in his stroller.  

But Mommy, look now!

Braden, please be patient!

And so on and so forth until finally, after about 90 seconds or so, I could look at Braden.  

And then I screamed.  Loudly.

He was holding a dead bird.  And a very newly dead bird, because said dead bird looked to be in pristine condition.  With no trauma, blood, etc.  Perhaps the dead bird died of old age and simply fell from the sky?  Or perhaps some kind of freak bird flu?  Which was now contaminating my son?

I panicked.

I picked Braden up and raced him into the house and washed his hands like I've never washed them before.  In the process, I left Casey outside, strapped into his stroller, unattended and still crying from the fear of my gutteral scream just moments before.

I'm Mother of the Year!

Braden was quite confused and couldn't understand why I made him throw the pretty bird in the grass.  And why the pretty bird wasn't flying away.  

It was a red cardinal, by the way. 

It took about 10 minutes before I was able to chill out and laugh about the whole thing.  Especially when I realized it kind of reminded me of this clip from Dumb and Dumber:

Yes, the whole thing is funny in retrospect.  But I am still traumatized.