Reason Number Bagillion Jamie and I are a Good Team

Yeah...so Jamie had to work late to help out with Welcome Week festivities. No big deal. I had successfully picked up the three kids from the two locations, fed them, gotten Jack to sleep, the girls their baths, and I was telling them a story (out of my head...rather than reading from a book) when I hear a noise in the kitchen. All the doors are locked and the garage door is down, but I'm still a little worried as I can't fathom what is "shifting" to make that kind of noise. So, I tell the girls to sit still and head into the den when I hear Jamie say, "Are you kidding me?!"

Now, we've known for a week or so that there are birds potentially living in (or practicing emergency evacuation plans from) the flower arrangement on our door. But when Jamie came home (early) tonight, he must have moved too quickly, and one of our little friends came IN the house with him. I'm not a bird expert...little...brown...long, skinny beak...heart beating a million beats a second and I'm sure I heard the bird say, "Are you KIDDING me?!" (Mom, can you look that one up in your books?)

So, Jamie goes and gets a push mop thing, and I go after a broom. Jamie gets a blanket to block the bird from going from the dining room to the den so the bird promptly headed that way via the kitchen instead. Meanwhile, I'm taking note of all the places our friend (who I'm now calling you "nasty little thing") is pooping on our floor. He then alights on our ceiling fan, and I immediately see the glimmer of "little boy" in Jamie's eye, and he goes and flips the switch ("I turned it on low," he says with a grin.) Needless to say, the bird didn't stay perched there long...the Tilt-a-Whirl wasn't his thing after 9 p.m. apparently. Finally, he lands on the floor in the kitchen, and I ask Jamie to put the blanket over the bird WITHOUT killing it. He is successful! But then...we're sitting there looking at our blanket wiggling and wondering how we get it up without squishing the bird and not letting it go.

In a moment of brilliance, I remember that we just opened a college tuition worth size box of diapers this morning so I go get that. Jamie scoops the blanket and bird into the box, quickly folds down the top flaps and carries "our friend" a.k.a. "nasty" out the front door.

The girls are of course up at this point telling us with all kinds of logic and frustration that birds do NOT belong inside and asking in various ways, "Why in the world did you allow this to happen?"

So...I've now Cloroxed and Lysoled my kitchen and dining room floors. Many years ago, I might have been heading out to go dancing at this time on a Thursday night. Three kids, a minivan, PTA membership, a bird in my house later and a made-up story later...I'm going to bed.

Goodnight.