Bat catching, burping and other important matters

i had the most horrible experience today of catching a bat by hitting it with a broom. fortunately, Phil cleaned up the "mess", but ugh! i get all freaked out still thinking about it! we tried to get the bat to go out through the open windows in the attic, but of course, it just wouldn't go. poor Skye and Claire locked themselves in the bathroom while their crazy parents made a racket in the attic with the broomsticks and all the screaming! but i'm so glad it is out of the house. what with all the holes all over our ceiling that still need fixing, who knows where the bat would end up if we let it stay!!

on a more lighter side, burping. yes, families with girls have to deal with this too. i made the mistake of burping really loud the other day after a meal and the girls thought it was hilarious. well, now, they think they can burp as loud as they want whenever they want! and yes, they think they are SO funny!

my neighbour told me they could hear us through their monitor. i'm afraid my first reaction was panic. oh my gosh, what did they overhear? me screaming my head off and cursing at Phil? me saying something completely inappropriate to my children? "we heard you say, Skye, if you don't get dressed, you can't go with us." phew! nothing terrible, right? this should teach me to turn off our monitor when not in use.

well, tonight, i'm sure all my neighbours heard us screaming at the bat, regardless of monitors. my girls were certainly excited about it and talked about it constantly as they got ready for bed! Claire kept asking, "what you doing up in attic?"

Playdate

today, Skye's friend came over for a playdate. the girls rode the bus home together from school and then Claire and i picked them up. while we were waiting for the bus, my neighbour and her three year old daughter came out to hang out with Claire and me and they ended up joining us for the playdate. while we were getting things going, another neighbour stopped by with her two year old daughter, wondering if she could leave her daughter with me while she took her son who was screaming to urgent care (nothing too serious - an ear infection but he was refusing to take the medicine at home so the mother was taking him to get the kind of medicine he would take). so, we had a rather full and bustling house. but there's something about kids playing all together - they were all happy and content, i even managed to get dinner made!

Neighbourhood block party

after 2 days of mastitis (fever, chills, boob hurting like crazy every time i move, you get the picture), i am feeling sane enough to blog again. it has been raining like crazy the last few days, but that didn't stop our block from gathering outside for our annual block party. fortunately, the rain stopped in the afternoon, so inspite of the wet streets, we all came out to play. as we were getting ready to pull out the food, it started to rain again. the kids didn't mind getting wet and running around. the adults all pulled out umbrellas and we ended up just staying out in the rain. then one of our neighbours pulled out an enormous tent that was big enough for tables and food. the rain eventually passed once more and we could sit out and eat. sure, it would have been perfect if we had sunny skies and warm weather, but everyone seemed happy to be in each other's company--that's all we need for a party, isn't it?

Locking up

my mind is a sieve. we returned from our time at the pool today and i saw our front door wide open. at first, i thought, oh, is Phil home early today? and then it hit me - oh my gosh, i forgot to lock our door! read further and you'll find out why i'm such a stickler about locking doors, but anyways, i am and so it was a bit of a shock to see the house WIDE open. not only did i leave the front door which is the enclosed porch door open, but the second door open too. there was just the screen door between our house and whoever wanted to enter. fortunately, no one came in. or if they did, they didn't take anything. the first thing i checked to make sure was my laptop - that really is the only valuable thing we have in the house and it was sitting where i'd left it. phew! it's nice to know we live in such a safe neighbourhood. the only danger i've encountered since we moved here is a schizophrenic old lady who lives several houses down from us. she has a tendency to want to run people over in the street with her car. i'm glad we don't live right next to her because then we'd have to deal with getting poop smeared on our house in the middle of the night or get run over in our own driveway. i sometimes wonder if this kind of neighbour is better than the kind of neighbours we had in Durham? you be the judge.

in Durham, we lived in a neighbourhood where i learned that if i hear something that sounds like fireworks, i shouldn't look out the window to see the sky - i need to get on the floor. shootings and police cars were all too common. we've had people break into our garage and crazy people try to come into our house because i'd left the front door unlocked. fortunately, we had really good neighbours who looked out for us. the time a crazy man walked into our house, i was home alone with Skye. our neighbour, Mac, was sitting on his porch across the street and came running over to yank the man out of our house. ever since, i've been really good about locking doors. i must have been really distracted this morning to forget to do such an important thing!

the evenings these days are beautiful. the fireflies come out and they are fun to watch. tonight, before putting Skye down for the night, i took her to the back of the house to show her the fireflies. she refused to look at them. i'm not quite sure what she is afraid of about them and she can't tell me yet. it has something to do with the colour - she wishes fireflies were blue or pink. the child's mind is a complicated thing. i'm trying to understand because i never had some of the fears Skye has. i hear it might also be a first child syndrome. i'm a second child, so i don't think i had as many fears as Phil who was a first child. he and Skye seem to have similar fears. i'm trying to help Skye overcome them, but not sure how. i'm trying not to belittle her fears and help her talk about them, but who knows? sometimes, i guess she'll just outgrow them as she gets older.