We all know that kids have a way of getting themselves into some really bizarre situations. Our first few years of parenting are basically spent keeping them fed, happy, & alive- the latter of which some kids make quite a challenge with their strange shenanigans.
My youngest is a perfect study in questionable life choices- he swallowed a screw. By choice, mind you. Jumped out a window (thankfully, it was the first floor, but STILL). Tried to bite a light bulb. Smeared gobs of peanut butter into the DVD player… just because.
Kids sometimes do weird things, period. And as parents, we’re left scratching our heads, murmuring, “W…T…F??”, and occasionally taking pics to use as amusingly embarrassing entertainment for future boyfriends/girlfriends.
One mom’s young son managed to get his head firmly wedged in a cat scratching post, requiring a rescue from the fire department, & the pictures have gone viral because for parents, it’s relatable AF.
Mom Cynthia Olson was probably having an ordinary day in the life… at least prior to the fire department arriving at her house, that is. The mom of three shared an amusing episode involving her four-year-old son Parker on a Facebook page entitled, “Catspotting Society”.
While tales of crazy kid stunts don’t typically make it into groups that focus on real (cat) “tails”, being a cat owner is central to THIS story.
For those that don’t have cats as pets, large scratching posts allow indoor cats to scratch their claws against the material, and also feature lots of nooks, cubbies, and holes for cats to climb & nest in.
Although scratching posts are obviously meant for CATS, kids sometimes love ’em, too. My own youngest son often tries to climb up our cat’s scratching post, at least until a clawed cat paw jabs a warning swipe at his head. Often repeatedly.
In Parker’s hilarious cautionary tale, however, their cat wasn’t camped out on the family’s homemade scratching post at the time, which made it a perfect time (in Parker’s mind, anyway) to do a little exploring.
And by “exploring”, we mean “I wonder how big this hole is, and if my head can fit all the way into it??”
And as per Cynthia’s explanation in her Facebook post:
our son got his head stuck in our cat scratching post today and had to have it removed by the fire department.
Yep! Turns out, while the scratching post’s hole was large enough for Parker’s head to fit INTO, it wasn’t quite big enough for him to get it back OUT OF.
And if you’re a parent, then you just know how this went down.
Cynthia’s a mom of three who has been homeschooling her children as of late.
Like many of us, she has spent every waking moment with her kids, supervising all.the.things. I’m willing to bet money that Cynthia took a moment to pee, or a minute to look for her likely now-cold cup of coffee…
And walked into THIS:
Here’s a head-on view:
And a close-up in order to really appreciate the mental angst of this scene:
Now to be clear to any potential sanctimommies out there, Parker was not injured in any way, nor was his breathing or circulation impaired in any way.
And obviously Cynthia tried to remove Parker’s head from the hole STAT:
I tried desperately to get him out myself but I’m a little vertically challenged and could not lift him straight up and turn his head and wiggle it out all at the same time alone.
Parker was stuck, but was pretty cool about it- other than the fact that he’s a 4-year-old boy, & 4-year-old-boys prefer to be moving at.ALL.TIMES.
Cynthia then had the realization that many of parents have in times like this: back-up was required, dammit.
So I resorted to plan B…. (fireman enters scene) And yes the laughed the entire time.
And since Cynthia is a veteran parent, she next did what many of us -myself absolutely included- would do in a situation of such insane proportions:
She took pics for posterity, of course, because this will be one of those epic “Kids, amirite??” stories!
And she did make sure that Parker was entertained while they waited for the fire department to arrive:
(Note that the phone is intentionally upside-down so that Parker can see it, which makes it even funnier.)
Help arrived in the form of the local fire department, & for Cynthia, surely she met them at her front door with an, “Ok, so I know this is weird, but my kid…”
(Because we’ve ALL been there, haven’t we?? Maybe it’s not a scratching post, but we’ve all been in the position of having to tell a stranger about our kid’s odd behavior.
The struggle is real. And sometimes a public spectacle.)
While movies often feature firemen rescuing a cat from a tree, it’s probably less often that they’re rescuing a kid from a cat tree, but kids, amirite?!
Although the firemen brought dish soap in case they needed added lubrication, it turns out the soap was not required; they used a simple “up & OUT!” method:
If a picture is worth one thousand words, then this picture is 1,000 “LOL”s. I’d have this made into a poster on Parker’s wedding day…
…or I’d share the epic tale on social media, which is of course, exactly what Cynthia did.
Cynthia’s cat scratching post tale has already earned over 14K likes in a single day, because virtually every parent has their own tale of their child ending up in a similarly weird situation.
The post currently has 254 comments from parents who found Parker’s plight simply hilarious (the visuals certainly help to heighten the absurdity of it too, don’t they??).
It’s also been shared over 28K times, likely by parents who are happy to say, “See?? It’s not just MY kid- ALL kids do weird shit like mine!!”
All’s well that ended well; Parker got stickers from the firemen & had his picture taken by the firetruck. But there’s another benefit to Parker’s decision to pop his head into the scratching post hole- the Olson’s cat won’t have to worry about Parker threatening the sanctity of his or her post nest… which is more than my own cat can say!