Day One Hundred Nineteen

You know, 2020 just hasn't had enough bizarre stuff happen. It definitely needed this - a swimming bat.

WTAFOMFGBBQBLURGH2020.

I'll back up just a tiny bit.

Summer Fridays I work a half-day. It's a wild thing called "Summer Hours" where you work  nine hours per day Monday through Thursday and then take back your extra four hours on Friday. Given that the notion of only working nine hours in a day is just SO adorable, I've usually had enough work fun by noon on Friday, if not earlier. All summer long, that equates to some sort of afternoon adventure with the girls.

The girls weren't feeling it today. I don't know why, but they couldn't pull it together and get out the door, even though I was promising super awesome things like ice cream and a hike. I probably yelled about shoes about 2395013 times. Eventually they made it out the door, but then I got distracted on my way out the door.

Yes, the apple falls very close to the tree. Why do you ask?

It was one of those, "I'll just clean up this one thing" sort of moments. It stretched on a little bit longer than it probably should have, but no big deal because the girls went out to the playhouse and sat on the stairs.

When I finally went outside, they looked freakin' adorable. Truly. But they would NOT look at me for a photo. It was really weird. But then I finally heard what they both kept saying and looked in the direction they were pointing and OMG THAT'S A MOTHER TRUCKIN' BAT SWIMMING IN OUR POOL.

I don't know how long it had been there. This all happened at 2:00 in the afternoon, but I hadn't gone outside all morning, so I truly can't tell you if Rainbow Marshmallow (of course the bat ended up with a name) had been swimming since before sunrise or if it magically teleported there later in the day. WHO KNOWS. What I do know is that I oddly felt bad for it because it was clearly fighting for its life.

I went and grabbed a shovel so I could help it out. There's video of that portion of the events, but it's on Alexis' phone because she needed to be prepared for her most viral internet post of all time. We figured there was a 50/50 shot that the bat would fly directly into my face. Alexis didn't want to be anywhere near by if that happened, so she took the video while standing in the back corner of the playhouse. It's ... not great. Because it's so far away. But! It served its purpose. I figured if I told Alexis to video, there wouldn't be anything of interest.

I was right.

It took a couple of tries to get the bat to stay on the shovel all the way out of the water, but I did it.

The bat seemed ... grateful? I think?

But it had no intention of going anywhere, not even when Mila decided she was going to kiss him and love him and squeeze him and call him ... Rainbow Marshmallow.

For real, the thing wouldn't get off of the shovel. I figured it was exhausted and just wanted to chill, so I sat the shovel against the pool and went to get in the car to take the girls for their hike.

The shovel fell over.

I'm sure the bat thought that part of the festivities was THE BEST. It crawled across the ground and found it's way to a brick that somehow has taken up residence in our yard. I'd try to explain why a random brick was just sitting there, but I can't. So.

The bat crawled sort of under the brick (and I do mean CRAWLED ... it was wild looking), making me think it needed more shade while it rested. So I did what any sane adult would do and went and found an empty box, sat it next to the bat, and left.

The bat stayed there. For HOURS.

Eventually the other adult showed up at home and moved the brick-clinging, box-dwelling bat up to the playhouse. The theory was that it needs to drop to fly away, but that it wasn't going to do it until it started to get dark.

So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, sunset arrived. Mila and I went up to the playhouse and found our way to a perfect little viewing spot. But the bat had no interest in leaving. In fact, at one point it left the box, hung from the railing, and then went RIGHT BACK INTO THE BOX OMG.

"Bye-bye, my precious baby" SLAYS ME, for what it's worth. Mila took the bat's return to the box as a sign that it was choosing to stay with her. There was a whole production involving an explanation of OVER MY DEAD BODY AND I MEAN IT. Sorry, but there will be no bats as pets, not even bats dumb enough to land themselves in a pool for hours.

With Rainbow Marshmallow safely back in the box, Mila and I kept on sitting. And sitting. And arguing about how the bat would NOT be staying with us. HALF AN HOUR LATER, WE ALL AGREED. FINALLY.

The bat left.

Mila has spent all of her time since sad that the bat left. I've spent it trying to decide if a swimming bat even makes the top 20 of weird things that have happened this year.

I don't think it does.

Day One Hundred Eighteen

Day One Hundred Seventeen

I took a couple of days off from work this week because apparently you're supposed to do that? That's what I hear anyway. I still have five weeks of vacation to use before the year ends, so I'll work on getting better at taking a day or two here and there. I swear it.

ANYWAY.

We're right smack in the middle of all of the 2020 cancelled trips. One of the girls is coping with her disappointment from missing dance and cheer nationals, so I figured I'd take them both to a few local things that seem relatively safe as a distraction. It's not Cape May or San Antonio, but the Pittsburgh Botanical Garden wasn't a terrible place to spend an afternoon.

In general I've found that weekdays are a better time to wander into the world than weekends. That was definitely true as we managed to only encounter a total of five people the entire time we were at the gardens. Three of them were employees, so it was definitely a win.

It's weird. When you find these little windows where you can just do what you would always do, you can almost forget that everything is stupid right now. Mila is especially good at ignoring all of the stupid, which makes her positively delightful to be around.

EXCEPT THAT SHE NEVER STOPS TALKING.

I mean, seriously. She has always been challenged by the notion that she is allowed to close her mouth, but it's escalating. Not being able to freely spout nonsense to hoards of friends is apparently leaving her with no choice but the spout nonsense to us. It's adorable and all of that, but it NEVER ENDS. Also, her need to ask what every word ever means is ... wow. It's just wow.

"Mila, you're allowed to be quiet for a minute or two."

"What does 'allowed' mean?"

She knows exactly what it means, by the way. It's part of a game or something. Still, I answer every time. Once I was done explaining it, Mila had quite the reply.

"Mom, you're allowed to let me talk as much as I want."

I ... have no answers for that.