"NOT ME!" MONDAY

If you had been at the zoo on Monday you would not have seen me with my seven children eating lunch peacefully at a picnic table. You also would not have overheard someone nearby comment and counting out loud, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ...how many do you have anyway?!? Wow! You're brave!" You wouldn't have seen me smile at her comment and count myself as "lucky" instead of "brave."

You also would never have noticed us in the dolphin and shark area exploring things with our eyes and hands. And you certainly would NEVER have seen one of MY children exploring the shark tank with... well, let's say MORE than his hands. Because my children do not fall into shark tanks fully clothed. Nope. Not us. We just plain don't act like that. You also would not have seen at that moment when my child was not falling into the shark tank head first, his brothers grabbing his feet, shirt and arms and trying to hoist him out. This actually continued to hold him under water rather than lift him up because he couldn't get his feet back on the ground. That is, IF that had happened, but it didn't, because it wasn't us you saw. And I would certainly NOT have been standing all the way across from the swimming child on the other side of the shark tank with some of the children, because I always keep ALL SEVEN children within arms reach, at all times. So when I turned around to see this particular child with head underwater, feet in air, and brothers struggling to resurface him - You absolutely DID NOT, I repeat DID NOT see me take off running to the rescue. And when the boy did resurface and looked generally unharmed, you would not have seen me laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath. I don't laugh when my children have just fallen in a shark tank! Not me! That's just wrong. You also did not overhear the zoo volunteers say, "Well you're definitely not the first person who's done that!"

But none of that happened to us - because it was NOT ME!