Bats in the belfry?

You never know how much you truly love your child until your daughter wakes you up at 1 in the morning because something is making noise in her bedroom and it turns out to be a BAT! She thought it was a big moth. The Dad went in first, and came back a second later saying "It's a Bat!"

So I had to save the day. The Dad hates things that flap around his head. That's why we don't own birds. (Also, because I killed a pet bird I owned once, but that's another blog.) I got up, put on my bathrobe (Baby brother was sleeping soundly) and went to check it out. As I went in, I closed the door behind me and said commandingly, "Don't come in here!" Yep, that was a bat. I grabbed a little garbage pail, I was going to catch it the same way I catch bees an spiders, (but way way bigger) and went in... I was ok until I got about 4 feet from the thing, and saw its face, hairy body and clearly pointy bat-wings...I came out and closed the door behind me and said commandingly "Don't go in there!"

I also love 911. I called 911 and they helped me. They are always there in the middle of the night, aren't they? I should send them cookies.

They told me to call the county health department, which I did, and at 1:30 in the morning I had a nice conversation with my new best friend. At this point, Daughter and The Dad were downstairs with me listening to my side of the conversation. He basically told me that I needed to catch the bat and send it in for testing for rabies, because if I didn't catch it and send it in and test it for rabies, my little girl would have to be treated for rabies anyway...I saw visions of long large needles sticking into her belly, and closed my eyes. Of course, since Daughter and The Dad were sitting right there, I couldn't very well become hysterical, and so I was very calm, which my new best friend acknowledged. Thanks. I'm good under pressure...He told me to call back when I caught it (or not) and let him know, and then he'd tell me what to do next.

OK, so I sucked as the uber-mom last night, I couldn't find it when I went back upstairs. I looked in the closet, in the bedding, in the pile of dirty clothe. I had a flashlight, Daughter has the cleanest under-the-bed of any teen I have ever known or been, and still, no sign of Baby Bat. I closed the door behind me and said commandingly "Don't go in there!"

Daughter slept with me, and we left her light on to make the bat mad.

This morning, we all had a lovely breakfast of waffles, which, considering how little I slept was not so lovely. Baby brother was in rare form, and thought it was funny how tired I was. He can be truly evil in comparison to his looks.

So, after half a cup of coffee, I was determined to at least find out where the thing went. I tore that room apart. I moved her chair, emptied her closet drawer, climbed on top of her bed, removed all the "curtains" and found nothing.

On trip three, I went in to move the desk. Before I did that, I had to relocate three posters that were beside the desk. There on the floor was what looked like a crumpled piece of brown paper. Have I mentioned how neat Daughter is? I took the tupperware I no longer had to have and covered the "paper" at which point it started clicking and whining. As did I. All of a sudden, all the adrenaline that had been coursing through my body since one in the AM needed a new home. I haven't been that close to losing my lunch (before lunch) in a while.

So I called my new best friend, and he was REALLY HAPPY I did such a good job. He may refer me out to others who need bat catchers in the middle of the night.

Now we are getting the exterminators in for a thorough review of the secret entry to the house. We don't want any bat friends looking for a new home.