An Exciting Evening
It’s time for a story.
Chaz had been back at work for only two days, and thus I still brand new at flying solo with two kids. James was twelve days old and Elise was realistically only 10 days into big-sisterdom, since the days I was still at the hospital probably don’t count. I, of course, was still recovering. Childbirth kinda takes something out of you. Literally.
We’d made it through the majority of the day, and my parents had stopped by in the late afternoon to drop something off. The kids and I made our way upstairs to read some books as they walked out the door, and we were just settling down on Elise’s bed with Horton Hears a Who to pass the time until Chaz got home from work.
I thought I heard a thump downstairs, but a lot of things can make thumps that are pretty innocuous, so I didn’t think much of it. “On the fifteenth of May, in the Jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool….” I read, and then I heard another sort of light thump in the stairwell. I paused and looked out the door, but I didn’t see anything there.
“…he was splashing, enjoying the jungle’s great joys, when Horton the elephant heard a small noise…”
And then something flew into Elise’s room, startling us to bits.
It was A BIRD.
A bird, in the middle of January, at night, inside. Not exactly what you expect to see flying around your child’s bedroom. It wasn’t a large bird, but since the space it was in was not…oh, I don’t know…the entirety of Outside…it seemed rather large. In addition, it was somewhat panicked and trying to find its way back outside, so it was flying here and there and everywhere around the room, seeking an exit route.
I definitely jumped, but immediately realized that if I acted frazzled, Elise would be totally freaked out and possibly scared of birds for the rest of her life. My response, therefore, would obviously have lifelong significance. #postpartumhormones. James was unphased.
My first action was to close the door. If the bird left the room, it was naturally going to be significantly harder to get out of the house. My second action was to open a window, but only the top half just in case Elise also decided to bolt and somehow defenestrate herself. It seemed highly improbable, but so had the bird’s entrance.
After that it was a matter of getting the bird to find the window and leave. I started chasing it around the room while holding a newborn, but of course, when I went one way, it would go the other. Being the predator in the natural food chain has its downsides, apparently. Also, “chasing” is a strong word given the baby-carrying situation. I decided to put James down in our stroller’s detachable bassinet, which just so happened to be sitting on Elise’s floor.
At this moment, Elise decided that a frantic bird was actually frightening, and started to cry, upping her volume level every time the bird landed on her bed’s headboard. At the same moment, James realized that an open window in January makes for a cold room, and he decided he was unhappy about it so he also started to cry.
After telling Elise that the bird would be far less frightening if she hid under her covers and tucking a blanket around James, I stepped up my bird eviction efforts by grabbing a throw pillow and chasing it with more bird-blocking area. And at last, after about 20 trips from one side of the room to the other and opening a second window, the bird found its way to one of the two possible exits and flew away to frigid freedom.
Considering the random major postpartum event the first time around was an overflowing toilet in the middle of the night, I suppose the bird was cleaner. I’m also happy to report that despite her initial fright, Elise now often says, “Remember the bird who flew in my room? It said, ‘tweet tweet!’ Awww! It was a nice bird!”
Since I have no photos of the whole episode, here’s an entirely unrelated one to close us out.
