So since Jav is out of town, it has been a tiresome couple of days for me. Joel was particularly fussy all day long, with his cold and teething hitting him at the same time. I tried to put him down before putting Gabriel to bed, but he was having no part of that. So I fed him while reading to Gabriel, then sang a song and told Gabriel good night and moved into Joel's room to try to get him asleep. I kept thinking I heard Gabriel, but the humidifier in Joel's room cushions the sound from next door pretty well, so he had to yell before I really heard him.
I ran in there with Joel and Gabriel was hysterical by then, and saying that he heard a sound and wanted to come sleep with me. Now, Gabriel has NEVER wanted to sleep with us overnight or even for a nap except for one Fredericksburg trip when I took him out of the pack and play and neither one of us could sleep after that. So I knew this was really bad. I felt terrible that I didn't hear him at first because I always tell him to call us if he needs us before I walk out of his room. And honestly, I was a little scared myself wondering what he had heard. I kept asking if it was outside the window, and he kept insisting that it was in the room. I picked him up too and we all headed down to our bedroom. I got him calmed down and went to put Joel down in his crib. It was then that I remembered hearing something like paper rustling while I was reading to Gabriel, but I just figured the ceiling fan was making something rustle.
I would have loved to keep Gabriel with me, but I've been bringing Joel to the bed for the last three nights with his cold and was worried someone would either get rolled over on or fall off of our ridiculously high bed. So I got him to go with me back to his room (which really is just temporarily his room and I don't feel like he's ever been comfortable in there) and try to listen for the sound again. I heard it about the same time Bones wandered into the room and headed straight for some wires behind our file cabinet. And there it was. A big greenish black beetle was walking around and trying to climb up that cabinet and was making a heck of a ruckus doing it. I went and got a big plastic cup and a skinny but firm book, which is my method of choice when it comes to trapping bugs and getting them back outside. But I couldn't get a good angle and the damn thing crawled behind Jav's behemoth of a desk. We were doomed.
Now, I've been trying to teach Gabriel to not be afraid of bugs for about a month now. I want him to have a healthy respect for them. But he has been freaking out lately every time a little gnat lands on him. So this was not a good situation AT ALL. I told him what it was, though, because he had even mentioned Monster at one point and I didn't want that in his head. I tried to keep him back so he wouldn't see it, and I don't really think he wanted to. But because he was so tired he was loudly saying over and over again, "Oh, it's a big black beetle", and of course Joel woke up. I went in to get him back to sleep and Gabriel followed telling his brother what was happening and running into things. I finally had to tell him (probably a little too firmly) that if he didn't go into the hallway and keep quiet I was never going to be able to catch that bug and we wouldn't get any sleep. I finally got Joel asleep again and went to get the flashlight.
I really didn't think I'd find him, but after tapping a couple of things under the desk I heard a rattle and did a very girly yelp and jumped way back. So much for showing Gabriel that I wasn't afraid of bugs. He started whining for me to pick him up. But I bravely shined the flashlight back underneath and saw the bug sitting on top of our blank CD case. After much deliberation with myself and silently cursing my husband, I went in for the capture. Gabriel couldn't hold the flashlight still because of his nerves so I set it in the desk chair. I quickly put the cup over the bug and slowly but very carefully started to wedge the book under the cup, making sure not to leave a big enough gap for the thing to escape. It started finally making a clicking sound when I got the book all the way under the cup and I came so close to just dropping everything and running away. But Gabriel was watching and I had to keep fighting. So I asked him to open the back door for me and moved cup and book outside. I wanted Gabriel to see the bug leave the cup so he would know it was out of his room, but when I started to move the book I was so nervous that the thing was going to fly back in our faces that I sort of just threw the book into the Asian Jasmine, where, of course, we couldn't see the bug leave the cup at all.
But I guess I convinced him it was really gone, because he's sleeping in there now. And the book is still laying in the Jasmine. Even so, I think I earned quite a bit of respect from Gabriel tonight. And Honey, boy do you owe me big for this.
1 comment:
A+ for you in the debugging job.
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