A hair-raising tale

A day in the life...

While changing Eli I noticed a hair wrapped around one of his toes. The cute little toe was turning colors above the hair and it looked like the hair was embedded in the skin. When I couldn't get it off my first reaction was to call his doctor for advice. They couldn't see us til 2:00 - two hours away. I didn't think it should wait that long and my next thought was that I needed another adult's help, so I called my neighbor Liz. I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful neighbor! She stopped in the middle of making lunch, scooped up her son and came right over. The two of us were able to get the hair off with little difficulty. She headed back home to lunch and Zachary and Daniel came running in to say that they saw Beau (our outdoor-loving cat) catch something and take it under the patio table. We couldn't find anything under the table so I went back in to finish getting Eli dressed. The boys came back in again and it took me a few moments to realize that they were telling me they had seen Beau take his catch INSIDE the house. They had left the back door open and I had no doubt that Beau had been thrilled to bring his prize inside. Not good. Not good at all. I started looking for him and quickly eliminated rooms, until my room was left. I walked into my room, turned the corner into the bathroom and my stomach did a backflip when I saw the cat slinking into my closet, with a live rat in his mouth. A live rat. I tried to grab the cat (while holding Eli in my other arm. Was I thinking I could carry the baby and the animals outside? Or was I just trying to get them out of my closet? I don't know) and he dropped the rat. Which ran deeper into my closet. A live rat running loose in my closet. I screamed. Not a high pitched "help" scream, but a loud low noise that escaped me several times before I could get it under control. There was a live rat in the closet. Beau was not pleased that he had dropped it and quickly ran after it. As I left to set Eli down and get gloves or a bag or something, I could hear the thing squeaking. At least it wasn't running loose in my closet anymore. When I returned, Beau had dropped the thing again and fled. I now had a dead rat in my closet. I scooped it and the article of clothing it was on up into my gloved hands and carried it to the closest trashcan, then dropped the bag and the gloves into the trashbin outside. Then I washed my hands. A couple times. Ugh. I hope those boys learned why we close doors when we go out or come in! (This is not the first time Beau is responsible for creatures in our house. He once chased a lizard through the front door that I was holding open as I scolded the cat and told him to drop it. It almost crawled up my pant leg but thankfully decided against it and ran outside again. I think the rat story is worse though.)