These first two I can blame on our beloved sometimes loved cat Sadie. This afternoon Sadie comes walking into the playroom with a lizard in her mouth. She proceeded to chase it around the playroom, bite off it's tail, eat the tail, and then leave the rest of lizard body in said playroom. Luckily, in the middle of the adventure my friend stopped by to pick up Claire for an afternoon playdate. I told her the drama and she bravely captured the lizard and threw him back outside. Brave friend left and I walked out into the garage to get something. What do I find in the garage? A dead bird. SAAAADIE!!!!!
Fast forward a couple hours... we have a cat door that goes from our garage into our house so Sadie can get into the house from the garage. I hear her come in and a few minutes later she walks into the living room with the DEAD BIRD FROM THE GARAGE IN HER MOUTH!! I screamed and she ran away into the playroom. I looked in the playroom and she's casually laying on the floor in the playroom, batting around the dead bird next to her. I was afraid she was going to bite it's head off or something so I grabbed Emma and ran outside to see if my next door neighbor could rescue us. He wasn't home, my friend's hubby who sometimes works from home wasn't home, so Emma and I just sat outside devising a plan. After a few minutes, our 12 year old animal loving neighbor gets off the bus. She usually stops by if she sees us outside to say hi to the girls and today was no different. As she walked over I said, "So, we have crisis."
Neighbor girl: what happened?
Me: Sadie brought a dead bird in our house!
N: oh! Want me to get it out??
M: really?? YES.
N: I need a plastic bag. (Proceeds to pick the bird up with the bag) Ohhh, poor birdie. He's soooo cute. A yellow tailed warbler! This is a protected species you know.
M: Wow.
N: His insides haven't hardened yet so he hasn't been dead long. (Continues to give me science lesson on what happens to the bird's internal organs post death)
M: you know so much about animals! Thanks for the science lesson! So what should we do with the bird? Throw him in the bushes?
N: I think I'll bring him home to show my brother. I might pluck a few tail feathers and put them in hat.
M: Well thank you for rescuing us!!! Hero of the day!
N: Anytime. I can get any kind of insect or animal out of the house for you anytime.
M: I'm glad my 12 year old neighbor saved us!!
Fast forward a couple hours... we have a cat door that goes from our garage into our house so Sadie can get into the house from the garage. I hear her come in and a few minutes later she walks into the living room with the DEAD BIRD FROM THE GARAGE IN HER MOUTH!! I screamed and she ran away into the playroom. I looked in the playroom and she's casually laying on the floor in the playroom, batting around the dead bird next to her. I was afraid she was going to bite it's head off or something so I grabbed Emma and ran outside to see if my next door neighbor could rescue us. He wasn't home, my friend's hubby who sometimes works from home wasn't home, so Emma and I just sat outside devising a plan. After a few minutes, our 12 year old animal loving neighbor gets off the bus. She usually stops by if she sees us outside to say hi to the girls and today was no different. As she walked over I said, "So, we have crisis."
Neighbor girl: what happened?
Me: Sadie brought a dead bird in our house!
N: oh! Want me to get it out??
M: really?? YES.
N: I need a plastic bag. (Proceeds to pick the bird up with the bag) Ohhh, poor birdie. He's soooo cute. A yellow tailed warbler! This is a protected species you know.
M: Wow.
N: His insides haven't hardened yet so he hasn't been dead long. (Continues to give me science lesson on what happens to the bird's internal organs post death)
M: you know so much about animals! Thanks for the science lesson! So what should we do with the bird? Throw him in the bushes?
N: I think I'll bring him home to show my brother. I might pluck a few tail feathers and put them in hat.
M: Well thank you for rescuing us!!! Hero of the day!
N: Anytime. I can get any kind of insect or animal out of the house for you anytime.
M: I'm glad my 12 year old neighbor saved us!!
Also upon moving to Georgia, we have unfortunately come to know the oh-so-common-in-the-South cockroach. One morning I opened our backdoor to let Sadie outside (obviously a bad idea all around) and a giant, at least two inches long, FLYING cockroach fell into our kitchen. The girls and I screamed and ran. I found a big heavy children's bible (sorry Lord) and chucked it at the roach. We left it there all day until Justin got home and had to take care of the situation.
Let's back up several years to when we had purchased our first house in Chattanooga, TN. You know what I found hanging out in our kitchen one morning when I came down to get my coffee? A scorpion! A big, black, freaking scorpion. I was so traumatized that I honestly do not remember what we did or how we got that thing out of the house.
Ready for the worst one? This one is still somewhat fresh in my mind so it has taken awhile to get over. When we lived in Iowa, we I found snakes in our basement on three different occasions! Two of these horribly traumatizing times happened when Justin was out of town for work. How's that for a way to meet new neighbors? "Hi, we've lived across the street from you for three years and never met. I'm Annie, my husband is out of town, and we have a snake in our basement. HELP!" Yes, that happened with two different neighbors during snake invasions. The last time it happened Justin was home so he finally got to rescue us.
So, let's see... lizard, cockroach, scorpion, dead bird, snake... YIKES! Let's hope we don't add anything new to our repertoire.
