So it finally happened. Enough knocking on the front door during Daniel's naptime pushed me to post the dreaded I'm-an-uptight-desperate-mama sign on the front door (written in large black letters and wrapped in packing tape). I didn't want to be unwelcoming - the curly g's and fancy a's make the sign look a little more friendly, don't you think? However, mail delivery usually comes in the middle of naps, and when there's a package, it is usually accompanied by a loud knock. There is also a neighbor who is on sits on the HOA board with Joe, and she tends to make her rounds in the afternoon and has woken Daniel up on several occasions. I love mail delivery and I am trying to love neighbors, so I decided to employ the sign to prevent them from casually ambling into the firestorm that is my inner growing resentment towards every interrupted precious hour of daytime sleep.
Yesterday afternoon around 4pm I heard a light rapping on the door. I was absolutely flabbergasted. Clearly someone saw the sign, and being that their own need to speak to an owner of the Puckett's household outweighed the Puckett's offspring's need for sleep, he or she thought the light rapping would capture my attention without waking the toddler.
As I tiptoed to the door avoiding falling into the visual line of the side windows draped in sheers, I debated whether or not to open the door and whether or not show my consternation at their disobedience of my friendly yet firmly stated sign. I craned my head to one side and then to another but couldn't see anyone. I walked around to the bay window where I could get a clear but unprotected view of the front stoop and driveway - not a person in site.
Then I spotted the culprit. His undulating flight path towards the empty lot across the street and the red patch on his head were obvious clues that my house had just been visited by a woodpecker. There isn't much I know about woodpeckers, but this I do know - woodpeckers cannot read. And because they can't read, they are going to knock, be it the front door, the trees in the front yard, or the gutters adjoining the roof above Daniel's room.
I wish I knew exactly what order of pecker it was, but this one looks fairly similar:
Red-bellied Woodpecker, Identification, All About Birds - Cornell Lab of Ornithology
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