Going Batty

A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing 

Proverbs 17:22

Last night was one of those nights that served to support that fact that we are crazy people. It was about 11 o'clock and we were both in bed, Shaun with his headphones on doing a webinar and me snuggled up to him on a cold, cold night regretting the late-afternoon-because-its-snowing-outside cup of caffeine I'd had.

I heard a rustling noise in our bedroom and then nothing. A few minutes later the noise again, though this time unmistakable. There was a bat flying around our room! 

You might guess that I would have kind of freaked out but I simply nudged Shaun to alert him and then calmly told him there was a bat.

You see, we've always owned old homes and somehow the bats have found their way in from time to time.

Fifteen years ago when the first bat made an apperance in our bedroom it was a different scene. Shaun very calmly told me to get under the covers because there was a bat in our room then he dressed in layers from head to toe and wielded a baseball bat in one hand and a tennis racket in the other while I waited for what seemed like hours, buried underneath every piece of fabric I could pull in.

After, I rememeber thinking, wow...what a freak, once-in-a-lifetime event.

But it was not to be so. Over the years we have had about a half-dozen run-ins with various bats and we have some good ole' family lore to show for it.

One of my favorites...Shaun had the three (very little) kids by himself one night. They arrived home to find the beast flying around downstairs. Shaun secured the living room and then closed it off with the kids inside so he could go find the bat. He searched and searched and couldn't find it. Finally he went back to the living room only to discover that the bat had been in there the whole time, with the kids, hiding in the curtains!

Over the summer while foster kid E was with us, I was driving her to a visit and had my kids along as well. On the drive there, she told them all about the vacation her family had taken to Turks & Caicos...the "soda" bar in the middle of the pool, the airplanes, the fancy hotel. 

My kids listened intently and asked questions like, what's Turks & Caicos? What's the Carribbean?

On the ride back, it was my kids turn to tell E stories and they told her all the bat stories from our family! She listened intently and asked questions like, a bat? a real-live bat?

Funny stuff!

Last night the ridiculousness of it all hit me just right and I got the giggles lying there in bed. And the more crashing and banging I heard from Shaun down the hall and downstairs attempting to wrangle the vermin, the more I laughed, until I had tears.

When he got back, having successfully shooed the bat out the window (on a zero degree night) we both had a good laugh together. Good medicine!