Sometimes parenting stinks -- literally

Skunks are bad. I am sure they have a "purpose" and all, but really, they have no reason to be in my front yard, or my backyard, or in any vicinity of my yard.

We don't have food sitting out, we keep our trash cans shut and bolted and we don't have any good hiding or living spaces available. Of course, that didn't stop one from trying to make himself at home.

I am not a country girl. We live in Cape Girardeau city limits, where the hospital and the police are just moments away. We have rules and ordinances, and I like it that way. Never in a million years did I expect that a wild animal would wander into our neighborhood and decide that my dogs in our fenced-in yard were a threat, but that is just what happened.

A few weeks ago I awoke to a horrible calamity. The dogs were going crazy in the backyard, and I could hear my husband yelling at them to be quiet, which was almost louder and more annoying than the dogs -- and then I smelled it. That horrible stink that could only mean that a stupid skunk was in the area.

I was in bed and in a daze of sleep, so at the time I just assumed the skunk was nearby, not that it would affect me in any way. Five minutes later I found out just how wrong I was. Max burst into the bedroom yelling, "Louie got sprayed by a skunk! What do I do?" I immediately yelled back, "DON'T LET HIM IN THE HOUSE!" ... but then I heard a mumbled, "Umm, too late, he is in the bathroom."

In my head I was cursing the day I met this man, because now my tiny little house smelled like skunk, but out loud I said, "Well, crap, get some tomato juice, pronto!"

I tried to go back to sleep, but between the smells and the muffled curses I heard from the bathroom, I only tossed and turned. Two hours later, Max came back in to tell me the tomato juice wasn't working and Louie was pink. In my frustration and sleep deprivation, I might have yelled a tiny bit, but we both decided to call it a night, lock Louie up in the kennel and deal with it in the morning.

Morning came bright and early when my alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. I was exhausted, but decided the smell wasn't too bad, so maybe we would be OK. Then I opened our bedroom door and just about fell to the floor. After ridding my stomach of anything it might have had in there, I woke Max up and let him know this was not working for me and he'd better find a solution. He called in sick to work while I started to get ready.

Around this time Cooper woke up and yelled for me. I opened his door and he gave me this funny look and said, "Mommy, what that smell?" I told him that a skunk sprayed Louie and then his daddy let Louie into the house, so the whole house smelled now. He just looked at me and said, "It's OK, Mommy, God made the skunks, so the skunks are good. Just call the Turtleman (from "Call of the Wildman" on Animal Planet); he will take care of it."

Standing in the hallway gagging, I realized my 2 1/2-year-old put the situation into perspective for me. Yes, the house stunk, yes the dog was pink, but the world was still turning.

Max spent all day de-skunking the house and the dog with vinegar, Clorox and fresh air. By the time I got home from work that day, the house only minutely smelled of skunk, and two days later we couldn't smell it at all.

Was this a horrible experience? Yes! Am I glad I had to go through it? No! Did I learn something from it? Well, I guess so. Everything happens for a reason -- still haven't found the reason behind this event -- but I am sure it's there somewhere, and we are a stronger more cohesive parental unit because of it. You don't really know someone until you see how they handle a stressful situation, and let me tell you, this was one heck of a stressful situation!

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Kristen Pind, a native of small-town Gower, Mo., came to Southeast Missouri State University with big dreams of being the next Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer. She never thought that by age 25, she'd be married with a baby and living in Cape Girardeau. Keep up with Kristen's adventures as a first-time mom -- one who's still a girl trying to figure out how her own life fits together. Turns out, she's living a dream she never knew she had, and loving every minute of it. Kristen invites moms of all types to find her "Baby Steps" page on Facebook.