Surprise!

The funny thing about surprises is, well, they take you by surprise -- and that's not always a good thing. What I've learned in the last 24 hours is that I love giving surprises (when they work) but I don't necessary relish being taken by surprise.

For about two weeks now I've had a surprise in the works for Carter. I knew my sister Renell was going to be staying at the Kalahari Indoor Waterpark Resort and Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells for work. It's not that far of a drive from our house so we decided we'd get together for dinner and then do the waterpark thing. (Jim, Carter and I had stayed there last fall and Carter had a blast.) Her visit was timed well, too, because Carter didn't have school today.

Initially, Carter wasn't even going to know about anything. I was going to get home early, meet him at the bus stop and drive to the Dells and not tell him anything. But the babysitter let it slip that we were going there. She said she didn't know it was supposed to be a secret and, to her credit, she just said we were meeting my sister there.

So there was still room for the surprise element. I had our swimming stuff packed in the trunk before Carter got off the bus. We drove to the Dells, had dinner with Renell and her friend Bill and then headed out to the parking lot. People were talking about the water park. Carter mentioned how we should have brought our suits. Oh well, I said. I told him we had to get his school picture out of the car for Renell, then I popped open the trunk and had him look in there.

When he saw our swimming stuff, he just cheered! "Oh, I love you, Mom!" Boy, I didn't grow tired of hearing that all night. He did have a blast (again) and couldn't get over the surprise.

That was the good one. The bad one happened this morning.

We hadn't seen our cat this morning and realized we didn't see her last night when we came home. Usually she sleeps in our bed, even when Jim is gone, so I suddenly got alarmed. Carter and I looked everywhere inside the house with no luck. Could she have gotten out? One other time she got out of the house when she pushed through a screen.

I checked the windows and sure enough, one of the living room screens had been pushed out, which meant she'd been on the loose "in the wilds" overnight. Carter and I looked in the back yard near that window and eventually found her under our enclosed front deck -- exactly where she ended up last time.

There is only one place to get in and out and that is where we broke the lattice that time. After much friendly coaxing and not-so-friendly squirting with the water bottle, she wasn't going anywhere. I was getting a little miffed but, as any cat owner knows, Sylvester didn't care. She just a laid her pretty white belly down in the dirt.

I knew the only way to get her out was to go after her. I had to remove a big section of lattice and told Carter he'd have to go for it -- he could fit through the hole better. Well he didn't want nothing to do with that. So I got grubby sweats on and gloves and crawled halfway through. At this point, I remembered this is where the snakes slept in the summer. I think my heart may have stopped beating but I was still able to gasp, "C'mon, kitty, get out!"

She finally ran past me and out and I am yelling at Carter to grab her and get her into the house. He's yelling for me to help him and I'm yelling back, "I can't, I'm practically stuck!" Well I did have to inch my way back out and I can't do that quickly when the chest gets in the way. Cut me some slack!

Carter got our girl in the house and in the bathroom as we'd planned and he comes out crying something fierce. I couldn't understand what he was saying. I thought the cat died or was severely injured or something critical. Finally, I realized he was saying, "She hissed at me." Knock on wood, she hasn't done that before. It was startling for Carter and he was saying, "I don't like this." And I said, "Well, it's not over yet. We've got to give her a bath!" (Now I know where the term "hissy fit" originated.)

I guess all's well that ends well. Two unexpected events. Make that: Two water adventures. One hysterical, the other hiss-terical. Gotta love surprises!