Girl Trouble

I heard some disturbing news the other night. The kind a mother hopes she doesn't hear until like, say, maybe the night before her child's wedding. It's taken me 48 hours to process it and accept it, but I think I may just have processed it...

Apparently last week (and we have this good authority), on a day Carter came home on the bus instead of going to the sitter's, that redhead was in our neighborhood. Her mother apparently dropped her off next door, but when the parents of the girl next door got home, they saw their daughter in the road near our homes. They asked what she was doing and she apparently tattled that she was waiting for Carter and her redheaded friend. They were in the woods!

OK, nothing against redheads, I swear. But what kind of woman invites herself over and then sneaks over to take her man out to the woods? And why is this happening in 6th grade? And what exactly is happening in the woods? And do I really want to know?

Of course, in a firing squad of 4 parents around the campfire Saturday night, Carter completely, completely denied this. "What woods?" he asked. Oh really, we're playing that dumb?! Uff da. I needed to go lay down then and, as I type this, I don't think I've gotten over this yet. I am living in Denial Land thinking maybe, just maybe, I wasn't going to have to deal with this until junior high as least.

Deal with what, you ask?

Well here's the thing. Now Carter will be coming home for the next 3 weeks instead of going to the sitter's. They have a Christmas tree business that keeps them busy in December and, since Carter just completed that babysitting course, we thought we could have some peace of mind that he'd be OK by himself for 90 minutes after school.

But now. NOW. We have to worry less about whether he's going to burn the house down and more about trusting him not to let anything else heat up!

Seriously, I need to go lie down...