Mum shares an account of her morning and we're both amused and terrified
Tara Wood, has apologised for being absent from her daily online writings, and while we've missed her dearly, we can only imagine she needed the break.
You see, the mum-of-seven has had a lot going on of late, needing to put her writing on the back burner until she got to grips with 'normality' again.
Last week the family dog was hit by a car, needing his hind leg amputated, with a number of medical issues surrounding the other.
Their pet has needed his bandages and wounds cleaned and dressed each day, with the duty of course falling to Tara, but as she was becoming accustomed to her new role as vet one morning, it seemed everything else was falling apart.
"It's been an emotionally and physically challenging week but then life delivered some super f**kery […] which let me know that things were pretty much back to our abnormal normal around here."
As her daughter Mia was kissing her mum goodbye heading toward the bus stop, the young girl informed Tara she could smell something burning.
"I noticed it too; it smelled like plastic melting, so I checked the toaster, all good, ran upstairs to be sure none of the girls had left their hair straighteners or curling irons on – nothing there."
"The smell was getting stronger and stronger but none of our smoke alarms were going off and I couldn't see smoke anywhere at all," revealed the mum.
Tara began to panic, the smell was getting stronger but she couldn't find the source, immediately heading to wake her husband, Garrett, screaming her worries.
"He was moving at a glacier's pace although he could smell the burning whatever as well. I was running from room to room like a mouse on meth when I saw white smoke wafting from our game room."
Tara's son, Ronan, was sitting in the room playing his Wii, totally unaware of the smoke filling the room around him.
"I looked up and saw a sock, one of Leo's socks, smouldering and melting onto the bulb of the ceiling light fixture."
Jumping up on a chair, using her daughter's doll, Tara manages to remove the flaming sock from the lightbulb without any injuries, nonetheless, the only thing Leo could say for himself was that 'sock fire' would make a great band name.
The mum began to relay the events which could easily have unfolded because of Leo and sock-gate, but she soon realised is was time for a much needed Xanax!
"So then I took my Xanax and did some deep breathing and calmed down and decided to be thankful that we got very lucky."
Taking a sip of her coffee, and feeling grateful for her lucky escape, her daughter Norah sweetly informed her that her little sister, Marigold, had found a squirrel.
"Hand to god, this was five minutes after I stomped out the smouldering sock on our garage floor."
Sitting in complete shock, Tara finally gathers herself, running outside to suss out the scenario, feeling that Norah may have been a little dramatic – surely Marigold wasn't holding an actual squirrel?
"It was all true. Marigold was holding a six inch long baby squirrel. He wasn't frightened and was allowing her affection because he was dead as f**k," she shared.
Doing her best to prize the squirrel from her daughter, Tara ends up bribing Marigold with food before the tot would give up her beloved new friend Mr. Squirrel!
"I placed his very deceased, limp body in a plastic bag, gave Marigold a quick bleach scrub down and made good on my Doritos and fudge pop promise."
But do you want to know the most amazing part of this terrifying and humorous rendition of family life? All of the events occurred before 7am.
As Tara recounts: "It's okay to laugh, guys. It's the best medicine. Wait, no, second best. Xanax is the first best."
Yep – we've all been there, a HOT cup of very strong coffee is exactly what is needed – and if you can't cry about it, laugh about it.
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