Over the past two years I had toyed with the idea of restarting this blog and after last night I think it needs to be documented. I am not going to change the overall name of this blog because I think Rick and I are still living a Key West Adventure - but we now live in Iowa. I think we are still the people that would rather jump on our beach cruiser and head to Smathers with our fresh Old Town ham and swiss croissants than do any type of outside yard work. Also we have had another life change and we welcomed our second child - Camden Joseph into our lives. I look back on Avery's first two years and wish that I would have wrote down more stuff to remember all those milestones that someday she will ask me. There is that Facebook post that has gone around many times regarding starting your child an email and sending notes to it so when they are old enough you give them the info and they can go read all about themselves. Great idea - haven't done it yet. So we will start here and see where it goes or how it goes in regards to time available to blog.
Here we go...
Like I stated above we welcomed a wonderful, handsome, first two weeks easy baby into this world. His name is Camden and Avery loves him. Which is a relief considering I was certain she would hate having to share the attention but so far so good. Now he is three weeks old and notice I said he was easy the first two weeks..that has changed.. he is now little more high maintenance and that is ok. Talk to me in a few weeks and well see if that continues to be "ok".
Let us start this bat story...Yesterday morning I was TIRED, like tired tired, had to call my mom and request a nap time so she could watch Camden tired. To which being the amazing grandma that she is she was more than happy to oblige. With that nap going into last night I was psyched- felt like a new woman. Both kids were asleep by 9 pm.. dishes done, showered it was GREAT! Camden at the 12 o'clock feeding was so good, he ate and was back in bed with in 40 min... about 2:30 Avery though woke up and ended up in our room.. which she hasn't done in the last three weeks so that was odd. Rick put her back to bed and then Camden woke up at 3 for his next meal. Again he was awesome, fed and back in bed in 30 min. Near the end of the 30 min I heard a ruckus in the hallway- apparently Avery had woke up again and made her way into our room. Just as I was leaving Camden's room I caught sight of Rick taking Avery into her room. I proceeded into the kitchen to assemble my nightly ritual of pumping.
Side note - and maybe TMI- but I pump because I need to know how much he actually eats, I pump because well breastfeeding is kinda annoying the whole latching thing ugh, I pump because he will go to daycare and need to know how to take a bottle, I pump because well because- please anyone reading this do not start some debate on breastfeeding vs bottle feeding vs formula so on and so forth. To each their own and it is sad that i just wrote this disclaimer but that is what the world is now a days - disclaimers, disclamers everywhere.
Anyhoo...
I am sitting in the living room with the lights low, hooked up to the magical milking machine and I am facebooking, I hear Rick walked down the hallway back to our room and about 1-2 minutes later I hear a sound. I can't describe the sound exactly but it was a sound that had me thinking Avery was walking or better yet creeping down the hallway. There are nights that girl is so stealth, she will be standing on the landing to our sunken living room and neither one of us will know it and she will scare us. I am expecting to shine my iPhone flashlight into the kitchen to find my daughter standing- I shine and no kid. I see nothing except my kitchen. I start to think I had just heard something like an old house settling or our ghost. It is maybe 1-2 minutes later when I feel something dive-bomb me from my left and then immediately from the right. I look up and to my left to see a winged creature fluttering past my head/face again from left to right and back. My adrenaline starts pumping and before I even know what I am doing I am screaming at the top of my lungs "RICK THERE IS AN F*ING BAT IN OUR HOUSE" as I am screaming this, with little regard to our two sleeping children, I am not even taking the time to stop the magical milk machine and I rip those suckers right off and go running toward Rick in the kitchen. Ladies that have used this magical milk machine know you need to turn that sucker off and in hind sight I probably had sufficient time to do so but in the moment, nope. Any ways... Rick is wide eyed and going where where is it I don't see it. I am sure he thought I was maybe hallucinating due to low hours of sleep - but like I had said early I was a new woman after my nap that day, I know what I saw. Finally, Rick sees it and has me go stand toward our dinning room. To set this up our house has a main hallway where the bedrooms are and then there is a wall that divides the kitchen from the living room but both of these connect to the main hallway with the bedrooms. So I go and stand by the dinning room to make sure the bat doesn't come around the corner and into our bedroom area or to the basement. We both lose sight of it when we were trying to find something to kill it with as well as position ourselves for the best places to monitor the movement. This allows me to get in to our garage from the livingroom to collect our tennis rackets so we can be armed. Over the next 10-15 minutes Rick proceeds to move every piece of furniture, kid toy, drapes etc... in our living room and dinning room each time he moves something he is expecting to be flown and but nothing - NOTHING- I mean what do you do when you know there is a bat and you can't find it at 4 in the morning??
So we are staring at each other deciding what may be the next best option- do we leave the house now, turn off all the lights and wait for it to poke its head out again so we can find it.. we are in the midst of this discussion when I walk through the dinning room on the way to Camden's room and just as I turn the corner that freakn' bat is flying at my face, AGAIN. I turn my head and quiet yell whisper to my husband "I GOT IT' and he goes through the kitchen to find it only to be faced yet again with nothing. He gives me that man look of where is it why did you lose it... that didn't go over very well. He slowly creeps down the hallway past our daughters room to look at the back stairway that goes to the basement. He says he hears in and proceeds down the steps. At this point I can no longer see him because it is a set of stairs (like 4) and a hallway and then a corner to the actual basement steps.. I am prepped at the top of the steps (the short ones) waiting for the bat to fly around the corner - tennis racket prepped like a softball bat- and I hear this - "Swoosh swoosh swoosh (tennis racket flying through air) and Ugh Geez Ugh Ugh I hate bats, F*.... quiet... then swoosh swoosh swoosh you f*ing f*er I hate these things Ugh No Ugh... quiet... the swoosh "I GOT HIM" in more of a relieved sigh. I go down and sure enough dead bat. YES!!!
So the part of the basement that Rick fought this bat to the death has no ceiling, but the room next door has a ceiling and the he described the bat as flying in to the ceiling - sticking its little chihuahua devil face out and its wings then flying at Rick only for Rick to miss him and end up back in the ceiling and repeat. SICK.
After this harrowing adventure we sat in the kitchen at the island discussing the events, where did that thing come from? How long was it flying? Is that what woke Avery up? Did it bite any of us? etc.. Just as we are about to maybe think about going to sleep - I am looking back toward the hallway and BOOM another bat flies in the doorway from the basement and then back towards the basement. Rick and I both pop up and are distraught to discover we had both left our trustee tennis rackets in the basement!!!! Luckily we play so much tennis so of course we have 4 rackets.. truthfully we haven't played tennis in like 8 years. I grab the racket from the garage toss it to Rick he walks up to the door way just as the bat appeared one swing and DEAD. YES!!
I then said no no no no no no we are leaving right now that is two what fi there are more. We are out of here. Packed up both kids and went to my moms. Who thank goodness is a before 5 AM riser.
Both bats tested negative for Rabies by the Iowa State Diagnostic Lab in Ames. Now we are in the process of trying to figure out if this is one time thing or if we have a colony- needless to say I am at my moms until that is discovered..
The adventure continues....
M
