An "Incident"

Let me start by saying that I am not very fond of crows. As far as birds go, I think they are kind of on the large side. They are too black, too shiny and they just creep me out. Not to mention that every morning at 6 am, on the dot, they land on the roof of my house and peck at who-knows-what. Could there possibly be worms on the roof of my house? If not worms, then what in the world is so tempting to them that they peck the heck out of the roof? It drives me crazy that at 6 am, all my kids are sleeping and these blasted crows are keeping me awake.

Now that you're caught up on my hatred/fear of crows, let me tell you what happened this morning. The boys finished their first day of swim lessons this morning and we were leaving the park. They were running around the jungle gym to get dried off before getting in the car. This large crow that was kind of hanging around during the lessons made it's way over to us. All of a sudden it started hopping/flying full speed towards Jacob. Jacob started screaming "Mommy!" and running to me as fast as he could. This bird didn't back away until Jake was close to me. Once I got him settled down we started towards the car again. At this point I turn around to look for Addie and sure enough, Mr. Mean Crow was chasing Addison. Not only was he chasing her but he had his sharp, mean, bird beak open and looked like he was trying to bite her. She was crying and running from him. I, of course, took off running to rescue her and this bird would not back down. So the three of us are running across the park, Addie in the front, Mr. Mean Crow in the middle and me in the back. I am looking like a nut case, clapping my hands and yelling, trying to scare the blasted thing away. Finally I get close enough to scoop her up and I can tell what she is yelling. . . "My gum, my gum!" In her haste to escape, she had dropped her gum from her mouth. Two maintenance guys come over and say "Was that bird chasing your daughter?" Yes sir, it was! They proceed to chase the bird away, throwing wood chips at him and yelling- making my earlier actions look not so dumb after all. The bird finally flies off. Then the swim teacher comes over and asks if Addie is okay- yes she is, he didn't bite her. He then says "Maam, could you please fill out an incident report?" Really, I think, we are already late for our next appt. and bringing 4 kids into an office to fill out a form is not really the best idea. "Yes- it's kind of weird and I think you need to talk to the pool manager." Fine- off we go. So I fill out the form and am not really sure what to write. I try to keep from laughing as I come to the part that says "Nature of Incident." I shrug and write the truth. . ."Large crow chased my 2 kids around the park." Hmmm- doesn't sound that scary on paper.

But, you try being 3 feet tall and being chased around the park by a mean, ugly, hopping crow with it's mouth open. I don't think you'd like it either!

ps- Now that I think about it, I guess it is kind of strange. It most likely was sick, something had to be wrong with it. It was much too brazen to be a normal bird. Not sure what my "report" will do , though.