Waiting for the bump

It was the cutest thing: Two squirrels scurrying across the street as if they were a pair of teacup-sized dogs that had broken free of their people and gone off to play.

Rolling, tumbling, and then stretching out fully - as if in flight - they performed these and other varmint gymnastics until they were safely on the other side.

For a few moments, as I waited at the stop sign, I thought of how adorable this impromptu act seemed, and how I kind of miss the squirrels while they are laying low during their winter siestas.

But then they returned to the center of the road with full and equal vigor, heading straight into the path of my car and uncertain doom.

Squirrels being squirrelly and all, the certainty of a traffic-related demise can be offset by the quick and limber directional changes they exhibit that border on the magical.

As a driver, however, I know my response is limited to one of only two possibilities: the unwise and reactionary change of course that could impact other drivers; or the tensing of body parts and the momentary closing of eyes as I wait for the stomach-churning bump under my tires.

I always choose the latter.

No bump. I open my eyes. No rear view of a tiny corpse. Safe again.

I can relax, thankful for the agility of squirrels.

It occurs to me that parenting can feel a little like white-knuckling through an alleyway full of darting squirrels.

Obviously, these kids have no idea what they are doing. Boldly starting out on their journeys, doubling and even tripling back before darting back into harm's way.

We count ourselves lucky if we don’t feel or witness the bump.

Lately, though, I’ve had the sneaking suspicion that our kids may not be the only ones playing the part of the squirrels in this anthropomorphic flight of fancy.

We parents are also chasing our tails in some panicked state of industriousness.

Sure we have intuition. A nature to nurture. But our real-world experience with raising children is limited to how we were raised.

When you think about it, parenting feels like tackling a never-ending circle of tasks we would rather do differently than our parents if we could just stop hearing their voices coming out of our mouths.

Of course, nature would have it that we are always wrong. I know you can’t hear me, but the voice I used in the last sentence was not tinged with sarcasm.

We humans get it wrong. A lot. And probably throughout recorded history we have always made mistakes that we just haven't acknowledged.

We zigged, perhaps, when we should have zagged.

Maybe these mistaken turns lead to places we ought not go, or perhaps they lead us to safety. If we are lucky - and many of us are - the bump we experience in the road won’t prove lethal. But the thing that I think makes us most squirrel-like is the speed at which we venture forth into this great unknown.

It really is the cutest thing.