not many stories end with me being the hero, so i really relish this one

The second half of this week has been really, really busy (and just as sleepless, in case you were wondering). Yesterday morning Will and I had brunch with a friend, and yesterday afternoon he spent a few hours at daycare while I went shopping for my back-to-work wardrobe. I was pleased to discover that I went down a pants size! Well, actually, "pleased" isn't really the best word to describe the happy dance I did in the dressing room.

Wednesday I took him to meet his great-grandma, who just recently left the nursing home where she was recovering after breaking her hip last winter, for the first time. We had a lovely visit, during which Will smiled and cooed and generally just charmed the pants off of everyone. The boy is quite the little schmoozer.

When we got home, he was fast asleep in his car seat, so I left him there and readied myself for a lazy afternoon of reading, watching TV, and surfing the internet. But when I was leaving the bathroom to start my lazy time, I heard strange noises coming from the second floor. At first I thought Joe had woken up early and was playing video games, but when I listened harder I determined that the sounds weren't exactly of the video game variety. So I headed upstairs to investigate.

As soon as I reached the top of the stairs, I discovered the source of the noises. Andrew's room is right at the top of the stairs and there, between the blinds and the window in his room, was a very large bird, flapping its wings and trying desperately to get out. And honestly? Just typing that out makes me shudder. A bird! In our house! It's funny how something that seems so perfectly harmless when you're outside can become so incredibly freaky once it invades your home.

I believe I made some sort of girly squeaking noise, and then I high-tailed it to our room and shook Joe awake while saying something along the lines of "JoeohmyGodwakeupthere'sabirduphereyouhavetogetitout." Joe woke up blearily and asked me to repeat myself, and after I provided all the details more slowly he requested two things: a box, and a sheet. I quickly provided both, although I wasn't happy about getting the box because it meant I had to walk past the bird's dwelling-place in Andrew's room. I think Joe's plan somehow involved throwing the sheet over the bird, wrapping it up, stuffing it in the box, and taking it outside.

At this point, the bird came alive. It realized its current escape strategy wasn't working, and it decided to start looking for other exit points. Our upstairs floor plan is almost completely open, so the bird began frantically flitting from room to room, lighting on the rafters and then exploring Will's (windowless) room and then flying over to the window at the top of the stairs. That was when Joe and I decided on our strategy: Open the window at the top of the stairs, pop out the screen, and hope the bird left. The whole time the bird was flying around in there, we were both ducking and covering our heads and Joe was breathing hard and kept saying, "I hate birds. Man, I hate birds. I really [expletive deleted] hate birds. Did you ever see that movie, The Birds? Dude. I hate birds." He eventually manned up and popped out the screen, but did the bird comply with our brilliant strategy? No, no it did not. It instead decided to go into our bedroom, the door of which Joe had left open like a dumbass. Our bedroom is the only room cut off from the rest of the upstairs. Meaning, once the bird decided to go in there, the only way it could leave was through our bedroom door. (This will be important later.)

We have floor to ceiling windows that require long curtains, and I watched the bird disappear behind one of the curtains. And my brave, manly husband? He wouldn't set foot in our bedroom to try to lure the bird out. Instead, he started throwing Andrew's toys at our bedroom window, trying to scare the bird into coming out, muttering the whole time about his eyes being pecked out. And...nothing. Our room was completely silent. We knew the bird was in there, we were standing in front of our bedroom door so it couldn't possibly have left, but it wasn't making any noise and Joe's scare tactics were having no effect. So I grabbed a plastic golf club, and in I went. Eventually, hesitantly, Joe followed me.

I started banging on every available surface with Andrew's little golf club, trying to scare the bird out of hiding. I checked under the bed, under the dresser, in the closet, behind all of the curtains, and couldn't find it anywhere. Right beside the window where I last saw the bird is an ottoman, and I looked in the space between the ottoman and the wall and I still didn't see the bird. After some time, Joe got brave and started bird-hunting too, but we still couldn't find it. It was hiding somewhere in our room, just lying in wait, and I told Joe under no circumstances was I going to sleep in our room that night, or probably ever again. For a while, we just sat there, unsure what to do. We finally decided that Joe should pop the screen out of one of the windows in our room and shut the door, and then we'd just pray that the bird flew out. I wasn't happy with this strategy in the least because I wanted to be sure that the bird was gone, but since we couldn't find it anywhere it seemed like that was really our only option.

But I kept being drawn back to that ottoman. The last time I saw the bird it was right beside it, and that seemed like the most likely place for it to hide. So without really even thinking about it, and giving Joe no warning whatsoever, I pulled the ottoman out from the wall and suddenly THERE WAS THE BIRD, FLAPPING ITS HEATHEN WINGS AND FLYING AROUND IN CRAZY PATTERNS. I was so surprised I couldn't do more than gasp, but Joe? Joe shrieked like a girl, hit the floor, and covered his head. He stayed that way as I batted the bird out of the room with Andrew's golf club, shut our bedroom door, and ushered it to the waiting open window.

And then what happened? The bird flew out and then, LIKE AN IDIOT, THE BIRD FLEW BACK IN. Joe had emerged from our room at that point and commenced his eye-protection tactics all over again. Finally, the bird wised up, sensed freedom, and flew out into the brightness of the day for good. I shut the window VERY QUICKLY.

Joe and I sat there looking at each other for a few minutes, breathing heavily and trying to get over the shock of everything that had just occurred, and then Joe looked at me and said: "You're going to blog about what a girl I am, aren't you?" I told him that of course I was going to blog about it -- and now I have. The end.

P.S. Will slept through the entire thing. And we still have no clue how the bird got in.