Morning Comedy

This morning at 6:40, the children and I were sitting on the couch reading Big Joe's Trailer Truck when Cubby all of the sudden pointed above the bay window and said, "Mommy, there's something funny up there."

Something funny, indeed. It was a flying squirrel, totally motionless on top of the curtain rod.

Super.

I briefly considered dealing with it myself so I wouldn't have to wake up A., who is pretty tired from his week in the courtroom and had been very much looking forward to sleeping in this morning. But in the end, I just couldn't face dealing with two excitable children and an excitable rodent in my living room.

So we all burst into the bedroom to wake up Daddy so he could deal with an excitable rodent in the living room. He was just about as thrilled to wake up to this news as you might imagine.

I went out to the shed and got the big fishing net. A. got dressed. The children got dressed, too. The squirrel stayed motionless on its perch. (Flying squirrels are nocturnal, so it was the lights in the living room that were keeping it so still.)

I stationed the kids on the other side of the glass french doors leading from the front hall to the living room, so they could see but be out of the way. We watched A. herd the squirrel along the curtain rod, attempting to get it to jump into the net. Instead it leaped and glided down onto the floor. A. opened the door to the dining room to let Mia in, in the hopes she would help flush it out.

However, fierce as Mia is with raccoons and rats, she seems to have only a benign interest in flying squirrels. So she was no help.

A. propped the outside door open and flushed the squirrel out from under the woodstove. It scampered in the direction of the door. He didn't actually see it run out, but he assumes it did.

He also casually mentioned that maybe it was hiding in one of the boots by the door. Great. That makes me feel better.

I gave the kids flashlights and told them to do a thorough search of the dining room for the squirrel. They didn't find it, so we'll all just hope it escaped. Or maybe it will fly out at me when I'm trying to get the kids dressed to go outside.

It's the uncertainty that makes life so exciting, right? Right.