Did somebody see a moose?

When my kids were little, we stayed in a hotel in Maine.  We spent much of the days hiking and perhaps swimming but the dusks were often spent looking for moose.  We never had much luck finding moose.  Even when we went to Banff, British Columbia, the elks we thought were moose we later discovered to be elks.  Our moose track record is really dismal.

Anyway, we were in this hotel room, my kids were quite young, and they were simply not going to sleep after a long, busy day outdoors, and I just wanted to read.  I just wanted them to go to sleep so badly. They wouldn’t stop giggling and laughing, and it was getting on my last nerve.  They were louder and louder. The laughter was non-stop. I had to leave the room.  I left my husband with these crazy kids.

I read my book on the public staircase outside for at least an hour, hoping that upon my return it would finally be quiet. The next day they were so intrigued as to where I could have possibly gone.  They decided that I took some mysterious trip to see moose.  Did I drive to Belvedere? Did I really see moose? And rather than let them in on my boring truth, that I was reading for an hour 20 feet away, I told them I would never tell them where I went. They wove all kinds of adventurous tales of where I went, most involved moose.

Now mind you, we live in a suburb of New York City, so moose sightings did not play a prominent role in our everyday lives.  But it must have been the summer, and we must have returned from a moose-less trip to upstate New York or Vermont, when my friend called on the phone and my daughter could only hear my side of the conversation.

“Really, Gabby, that’s so wonderful.  I’m so happy for you! That’s such great news!  I’m so excited for you!”

My daughter, overhearing this, ran into the room. “Did somebody see a moose?’ she asked excitedly.

Gabby was pregnant.

And why I bring this up today, some 20 years later, is because I left the house without alerting anyone that I was going for my second walk of the day.  Everyone was busy on phone calls and teleconferences for their respective jobs.

A half hour into my walk, my daughter texts:

“Did you go for another walk?”

“Yup”

“Daddy was worried. You didn’t tell anyone. He said you appear to be missing. Are you leaving the family?”

Going to find moose! I texted.