POSSUM!

You must be thinking, what a pretty kitchen--she must have spent an absolute fortune on it. This photo is from the old apartment where we spent our first seven years as a married couple.

The week before Parker was born, I found a baby possum in my kitchen utensil drawer. It happened on the Tuesday before I was to be induced on Thursday.

That morning I heard a noise from under the kitchen sink. It sounded as though something were getting into the garbage can we kept stowed under there. As I was waiting at the time for my mom to pick me up to go to my drs appointment, I didn't take the time then to investigate. I didn't have another thought about it.

In the afternoon I went into the kitchen to do something; I don't remember what. I opened the drawer next to the sink, pictured here, and there I saw the single eye of a creature looking up at me. I'm surprised the neighbors didn't hear my scream, as I immediately proceeded to close the kitchen drawer with my foot. I've never been so startled before or since.

It was only a baby possum, and my dad was able to come and remove it from the kitchen fairly quickly. I remember this morning because in the night we heard noises coming from the vicinity of the bathroom, which adjoins Parker's room in the new house, just as it did in our old apartment. Michael went out in the night to investigate and found a possum sheltering itself from the cold in our basement and chewing on insulation surrounding the pipes under our tub. He said to me, "You won't believe what it was." In the end I'm just glad it didn't wake Parker so that we were all able to get a little more sleep before morning.