batman returns

The baby monitor we have is almost six years old. The cord tends to fall out of it, cutting me off from hearing what's going on upstairs in the boys' rooms (our room is downstairs and at the opposite end of the house, so we can't hear anything without the monitor). So I didn't think a lot of it last night when, after Mike got home from work, he went upstairs to check on the boys, and the monitor cut out yet again. And then I started hearing these loud thumps. And yelling. Then feet thundering down the stairs. And the front door opening. And Mike talking in an angry voice. So I dragged my tired self out of bed and went to the dining room doorway.

"I told you to stay in the bedroom and shut all the doors!" said a voice from the floor at the bottom of the stairs. I looked over, and there was Mike, squatting at the bottom of the stairs ... and there was a bat, flying back and forth in the living room. Eek! Mike ran down to the basement and got his tennis racket, leaving the front door wide open, and when he got back, the bat was nowhere to be seen. Had it flown away? Nah, we couldn't get that lucky, so Mike commenced a careful search of the house.

Meanwhile, the boys were getting awfully freaked out over the whole thing. Apparently, Mike first spotted the bat in Max's room and yelled out something unprintable, which caused Max to wake up and start screaming because there was a bat flying frantically above his head. So Max ran into Liam's room, and the chain reaction began. And so, like any family under attack, I took the boys and closed us into our bedroom/bathroom, while Mike bravely hunted the thing.

By this time, of course, the monitor had decided to work again, so the boys and I listened to the sharp whoosh of the tennis racket slicing through the air several times, along with a bunch more loud thumps (which turned out to be one of the cats repeatedly jumping up and hitting the bat, being useful for once!), and after about 10 minutes, we heard Mike's maniacal laughter. The bat was vanquished!

Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy to vanquish the image of the scary bat from the boys' minds, which meant that they ended up "sleeping" in bed with me for the rest of the night, while Mike slept on the couch. I'm not exactly sure who among us got the least sleep, but I can definitely tell you that it's a good thing it's Friday. All we have to do is get through the day, and then hopefully we can all indulge in a good, long, and presumably bat-free slumber.