Uninvited Guest

It's about 1AM on Wednesday morning, and I awake to a strange noise. It's not coming from the baby monitor (which Joel insists that we don't need anymore, but I respectfully disagree), so I go back to sleep. I hear the same noise again and assume that it's the suction cup thingies in the shower. Okay, so this goes on four or five more times. Joel FINALLY wakes up. I tell him it's just the stupid suction cup thingies falling down in the shower and that he should just go back to sleep.

Joel gets up to investigate. I roll over. (Apparently Joel has never seen a scary movie. If you want to live, you NEVER investigate strange noises in the middle of the night. I'm a survivor, so I stay under the covers.)

Joels comes in the bedroom and gets a gun out of the closet.

Now I'm awake.

Joel has been shooting crows out of the bathroom window and he was NOT going to do it at 1AM. I was going to put a stop to that. I get up and make my way to the hallway where Joel is standing at the top of the stairs. He shushes me, so I go check on Owen who is sound asleep ON HIS STOMACH! I forget about the strange noises that evidently are not the bathroom suction cup thingies and have a freak out and remember all of those warnings I've been told about SIDS. While Joel stands at the top of the stairs and cocks the gun to scare the monster who has invaded our home, I roll Owen back over to his back where he belongs.

Joel asks me to turn on the light in the livingroom. (We have remote controlled lights, so I was able to do that from our bedroom.) After the light comes on, we still hear noises downstairs. I go back to Owen's room to make sure he's still sleeping on his back. When I look out into the hallway, Joel is gone.

I hear a yell and a little crash. Then I hear, "Sweetheart, it's a baby squirrel."

We were able to corner it in the diningroom, which has the fewest places to hide. Joel chased it into a box, but it jumped out. (Duh, it's a squirrel.) I tried to throw a towel over it. My plan was to catch it in a towel and let it go outside. Joel's plan was to bludgeon it with whatever object he could find. Finally, it ran under the pack-n-play. I went into the kitchen to pick up all of the things it had knocked over. Joel turned his back for a moment. When we moved the pack-n-play, little Houdini was gone!

We searched and searched and searched and searched. We even brought Lennie (our blind cat) up out of the basement, assuring ourselves that Lennie is a good hunter. After extreme exhaustion set in, we comforted ourselves by agreeing that Houdini must have let himself out the same way he came in.

So we went to bed.

The next morning...no sign of Houdini. I took Owen to daycare and went about my day as usual. Joel stayed home to look for Houdini, patch up his entrance, and shoot any of Houdini's squirrel friends that may be hanging out in the backyard. Joel eventually found Houdini hiding in a corner in the livingroom. Joel "took care of him" and I haven't seen Houdini since. I did, however, see four of his friends in the backyard this morning.