Noodle and the Goose Again

One Spectacular Pass - Pow!!! Kazaam!!!

Lately I've been feeling the Mama-Fail-Thing. Even composing blog posts in my mind entitled "Top Ten Mama Fails" or at least "Top Five Mama Fails". On the list are things like "My kids are not involved in one single after school enrichment or entertainment activity and hence will never get into a good University", and "I can't make daughter #1 eat vegetables. At. All.", and "I'm not nearly intentional/radical/sustainable/artistic enough about my homemaking and mothering" and " my kids watch too much TV and too little time learning important and interesting things or doing creative projects" and stuffed like that. 

Dunno. Maybe I've flashed through too too many "Mommy Blogs" written by the daughters - or worse granddaughters (add to that list of fails, "I'm just too damn old to be doing this") - of Martha Stewart who are out there doing it all and taking pretty pictures of it to "remember the moment". I'm too too wearied by it to even try to enumerate in a smart or/humorous way, the many and varied things these amazing Moms do on an average day. But then, I was up rather late last night chasing down and tossing out of our house on its ear the BAT who came to visit our humble abode.

Yes, you read that correctly. The BAT. Aka, flying rat.

I knew we had bats in our yard, particularly living and nesting on the far side of the house (the side without the deck and with the jumble of pear trees). Partly because I've seen them swooping around at night when I take Maizie out for her last pee break. Also partly because when I took down the mini-blinds in the bathroom to wash them (soak in the tub with dishwasher powder) I found this:

hanging inbetween the storm window and the regular window - along with lots of spider webs, dried leaves and gunk.

Pretty cool, no?

At first I thought it was dead, but when it moved position between the time I first encountered it and when I dragged the girls (from the TV no doubt) to see it, I decided it was alive and real. Sleeping, of course, because it was daytime.

So great and wonderful. We have bats. Bats are our friends. We need bats to eat the mosquitoes, the thousands of mosquitoes who are already (dang nabit) plaguing us when we exit our house. Bats are endangered from White-Nose Syndrome, as reported by Noodle from her Science class. We should do everything we can to assure that they survive and thrive. Why, I even considered building some bat boxes to hang high in our trees. I love bats. Bats are our friends.

This does not necessarily imply, however, that I want them swooping and dancing their way up and down the hallway and doing lovely arabesque circles around my sleeping in bunk beds girls inside my house when I'm in the other room working on my computer.

And yet, something in my speech to the girls re: batly goodness seems to have been misinterpreted by one of the bats living outside our house, as he or she somehow opened the top of the (other) bathroom window and came for a visit last night under just such circumstances.

I was working at my desk in the library, actually working not surfing Pintrest, when Noodle came screeching into the room looking horrific and shouting "Mama, Mama there's a BAT in our house, there's a BAT in our house" which, surely enough there was. Swooping up and down the hallway with kitty (Zora) in hot pursuit, soon enough joined by puppy (Maizie) awoken from her pre-bedtime nap on the couch to begin frantic barking and crashing into walls. This noise, of course, awakened Goose in her top bunk, and since Noodle had helpfully left the door to their bedroom open, the BAT swooped into that room. Goose commenced screaming and screaming and screaming. And really, who can blame her? It was like something out of a horror flick. The bat careening about, the child trapped in a corner, wild shadows cast on the walls, dog barking, sister in the other room screaming, Mama tripping over her feet waving her arms trying to shoo the BAT out.

Once I managed to chase the bat out of their room I scurried to the kitchen and grabbed a tupperware (like, I think it may not have been official tupperware) container in which to trap the BAT. Tupperware (like) containers are very useful for trapping things you don't want in your house and need to remove rapidly from your house because they (the containers, not the unwelcome things) have lids. I learned this trick from my Spouse-Person who has successfully trapped various and sundry creatures in such containers in the past. I can think immediately of large lizards, a bird or two, a snake, and spiders, including one that we discovered after it had been deposited outside, was actually a Very Bad Spider Who Could Kill You If It Bit You.That was in Indonesia (of course) and here in the US that helpful and experience Spouse-person was not at home, but at work (of course).

Working in his stead, I successfully shooed the bat into my bedroom and trapped him/her behind the weird boxy thing on the window - I think it is called a Cornice. Anyway, BAT got trapped and lid went on and out the front door we went, BAT away to safety and me back to the now hysterical girls. Goose was actually shaking in fear. It took a Very Long Time for her to stop screaming, crying and shaking. And even longer to let go of me and fall asleep. Before finally doing so she tearfully said, "But Mama, I didn't know that BATS were real.  I thought they were like Vampires. You told me Vampires weren't real. Are Vampires real too?"

I'm guessing that she learned of Vampires from watching too much TV, which - OMG - is evidence of my parenting fail, but having rescued my dearest wee ones from the terrors of the BAT and being able to impress the difference between REAL (BATS) and NOT REAL (vampires) in a sure to not be forgotten way to my 6 year old?

I consider this to be a parenting pass. On the high side of the bell curve, if not with a few honors.

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Addendum- I've since learned that should another BAT get into the house, it can be easily directed back outside by enticing it into a room, opening a window and turning off the lights. Rumor has it that the BAT will fly right out.

I'm hoping not to have to test that anytime soon.

Help will come -

From the unlikiliest places.

Last evening I was missing my Mom a whole lot and stressing about my daughters even more than that.  Nearing the edge I came across Sarah Kay's TED talk on my ipod.

It is worth listening to here. Especially if you have daughters. Or a mother.

At least read the opening poem. I really felt it.

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Point B -- Sarah Kay

If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.” 

She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried. 

 And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.” 

 But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it. 

I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away. 

You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. 

And yes, on a scale of one to over-trusting I am pretty fucking naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it. 

“Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”  Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. 

Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

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