The girl had a rough evening tonight. Nothing went her way. She was very wound up at dinner, and her mother and I were on her case all night long for innappropriate behavior, being grabby, eating too fast, etc. Then she realized she forgot to bring home her homework, which meant she would have to do it instead of recess tomorrow.

Then, she and her brother were sent to bed early as a consequence for a screaming match just before bed last night, and they were not happy campers. Ten or fifteen minutes after they were sent to bed, I went back to check on them. As I walked down the hallway to their rooms, I heard them both in the boys room, talking excitedly. Expecting to have to lay down a Fatherly tirade, I tiptoed in.

The motion sensor light had gone off outside the girl’s room, and the girl had peeked outside (expecting to see one of the friendly neighborhood raccoons) only to see a possum (or more accurately opossum). She had hurriedly awakened her brother, and they were bouncing off the walls as they watched this big fat possum waddle through the yard.

It was a big one, too. It looked like it could have weighed 20 pounds. Eventually the wife came back to find out what the commotion was, and we all peered through various windows as the little marsupial trundled through the yard, under a streetlight, and off to the creek across the street.

The kids got sent back to bed, with an admonishment to go straight to sleep. But my daughter, who had been angry and upset all evening long, was now a bundle of joy, and quietly giggled to herself for at least another half hour, whispering “My first possum. I saw my first possum.”

Thank you, Brer Possum.