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Heart - Stopping Moments

You know in the movies when the heroine is confronted by something truly horrifying? Like those slasher flicks where she throws open the closet door - because she was curious about the heavy breathing coming from her cashmere, presumably - and you have that heart-stopping second of pure adrenaline fear as you wait for the knife? And then you see it and your body gets dumped with chemicals as your brain tells you to jump and shriek?

I've had one of those before. Years ago on an archaeology dig that I worked at, a colleague and I went to collect some water. It was a very hot Texas summer and the water pump was underneath a silver trash can lid. My colleage lifted the lid.

There, curled around the pump, was the single biggest Bull snake that I had ever seen in my life. It raised its head at me.

And I screamed in tones that my throat had never before utilized.

It was one of those heart-stopping moments, where my body was flooded with adrenaline and I lost control of myself. I wasn't the only one. My colleague was so shocked by the snake and my response that she wet herself.

Like I said - heart - stopping moment.

On Saturday I was run ragged. Angus is reaching levels of stress so high that I am no longer counting to 10 or even 100, but am reaching new levels of counting to keep myself calm. Nick's chicken pox are such that he is literally covered in hundreds of spots. He has them on his tongue, in his ears, and on his eyelids. He has them on his man bits. He has them everywhere. He's also got accompanying runny nose and diarrhea, and to top it off he's teething. Nora hasn't come down with them yet, and I am so desperate to ensure they both just get it overwith that I'm tempted to rub them both together like sticks starting a fire to see if we can get her to come down with them. Hi! Mommy loves you so much! Now get sick, will ya?

On top of all that, Melissa's new bedroom is ready and our master bedroom is heading that way. Our to-do list was a mile long this weekend as we have to ready the rooms to get the floors in this week and we have to ready the downstairs for plastering and drywalling, which meant long hours of cabling for Angus (our house is being wired so that no cables are visible, everything is buried in the walls). We worked 16 hour days on Saturday and Sunday just trying to get it all done, taking care of infants in the duration, including one who is definitely not feeling very well.

On Saturday Angus took a happy bubbly Nora to the hardware store to get some needed items. Pox Baby and I stayed home, and I gave him an oatmeal bath (which he seems to enjoy). I carried him into another room and settled him in a bouncy chair, then went back to drain the tub.

There on the floor of the bathroom was a large brown leaf.

I looked at the large leaf.

The large leaf raised its head and hissed at me.

Heart- stopping moment number 2.

"Christ!" I screamed. "What the fuck!"

I backed out of the bathroom, falling on any number of paint pots, extension cables, and various other building detritus. Once I landed painfully on my ass I stared into the bathroom, unsure what to do. The leaf continued to hiss at me.

A bat.

We had a bat in the house.

This is probably where I should admit my true and utter geekdom to you, even though a number of you will read this, realize how tragically uncool I really am, and never come back. The truth is that I absolutely love bats. No really. I think they are seriously cool and amazing, and I remember spending loads of time in The Seychelles just staring at the fruit bats overhead.

I think bats are great.

I don't want them in my bathroom, however.

I walked into the bathroom and stared at the little guy. Wounded, shaken, scared, he continued hissing. I felt that surge of adrenaline pour through my body. I looked around - the bathroom is a disaster of newly plastered walls. My hands were covered by paint. Bruises went up and down every part of my body, highlighting the new thick dark scars on my leg, courtesy of that dishwasher incident. My carpal tunnel - a gift from my pregnancy - made it so that I could barely move my thumb. Angus would be back soon and he was not in a stellar mood. Nick set off wailing in the other room. And now a bat.

I started laughing hysterically. I had reached The Point. You know the one, The Point is that place where you are either going to crack or make it. I cracked. I sat down on the step and howled with laughter.

Then I wiped the tears off, went and got a yogurt pot, and collected my hissy fit little friend.

I contacted the Bat Conservation Trust, who came out on Sunday to collect him after I'd placed him in a dark box by the compost, which sees a number of insects. It was clear he was injured, and like I said I do like bats, so I wanted him safe. Not to mention that bats are protected in this country, and so messing with them is a real no-no. I wanted to be above board about the bat, and see that the rules were followed.

A man came out to collect him as soon as I got in touch with a local contact on Sunday. Said man - whom we naturally nicknamed Batman immediately - was a real fan of bats. Seriously. He even collects guano to try to identify bats. I took Nora outside and we handed over the bat, and we got chapter and verse about bats. I was mostly interested, but aware of how much work needed doing in the house. Nora was interested in the bat for a bit, but soon went from "Interesting little brown thing, Mommy" to "I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm so bored I'm about to make your life hell" mode.

Batman collected the bat, letting us know that he was not optimistic about his chances - the bat had a fractured wing, and he had puncture wounds from being caught by a cat. That one startled me - it turns out Maggie, whom we'd previously assumed couldn't catch a cold, caught the bat and brought him in during the short time it took for me to take Nick out of the bathroom and into another room. We're sure the bat's not from our house as we had a survey done, and if your home has bats you can't remove them. But the bat is from somewhere local, anyway.

I like bats.

Just not in my bathroom.

And I think I lost a few years off my life on Saturday. If you haven't read into this post that I'm stressed to fuck, then lemme' just assure you of it outright.

No more heart - stopping moments, ok?

-H.