Missing Persons

I have never met another child who loves animals as much as Naomi does. It's really more of an obsession... a really weird obsession.
She prefers to get stuffed animals, plastic animals, rubber animals, animal books, coloring books and animal printed clothes over Barbie’s and baby dolls any day!

If we are outside and she spots someone with their pet, they better watch out because Naomi is on her way over to love that animal (even when the owners say no!)

She has been known to chase down ducks, geese AND chickens to try to hold them and in the process has been pecked several time because flying animals don’t like to be picked up!

She will sneak attack squirrels, chipmunks and other creatures we find in the yard, to grab them and pick them up... again, they don’t like that!

She picks up frogs and will hold them for literally hours until we force her to let the poor things go. She will capture and 'play' with any bug she finds (she's befriended everything from ants to cockroaches!)

This child has even chased down a snake and picked it up by the tail. She didn't just pick it up and let it go either... she picked it up and dragged it all over the yard! She even tried dipping it in the kiddie pool. Finally, I had to make her let go of that too!

Yesterday though, she scared the crap out of me. Naomi has a bad habit of wandering away from the house. She sees no need in asking for permission before deciding to go exploring outside. Sometimes I'll think she's in the basement watching cartoons, when really I find out she's been outside playing for an hour (then I feel like a bad mom). Although, usually she's out with other kids or just across the street in te woods playing in the dirt.
Yesterday was one of those times where she had gone exploring alone. Elle and I set out to find her as usual... but she wasn't in any of the usual spots. I actually got really worried and was about to call 911 if I didn't find her in the next 30 seconds!

Luckily we found her safe and sound! She was way down the street... knocking on every door she passed, asking to play with any of their pets! WHAT! Who does that?? When I saw her I freaked out! Anybody could have taken her into their house and I never would have known! One of the houses apparently had rabbits that they let Pinky hold. And there was a couple sitting outside, who when they saw me, told me they were worried because this little girl was wandering around house to house! I felt like the worlds worse mother! Oh my gosh! This is a new level of obsession for Pinky! When I got her home, I yelled... alot! And sent her to her room until dinner was ready (a good two hours!)

Oh, and I neglected to mention the OTHER incident we had earlier in the day! Not only does she love live animals, but also dead ones. I have to be fast to make sure she doesn't touch dead things we find on the road. But yesterday morning, both the girls took Loki out into the woods to play. I didn't know this until later, but Naomi had found a large bird/duck thing dead in the woods with its ribs beginning to become exposed. This kid, grabbed the ribs and dragged the dead animal all the way home and left it right outside my back door! EWWWWWWW!