It was a really busy day for Tim. He had spent most of the day doing hard labor at our neighbor's house, then we rushed off to a BBQ, rushed home with just enough daylight to mow the yard, and then threw our dirty kids in the tub. Tim went upstairs to get Penelope her PJ's, and I hear, "There's a bat. There's a bat!"
Ok. We've been here before. So Tim preps himself with clothing from head to toe so that the bat won't touch him. Then he finds the tennis racket that was bought for bats, not tennis. And then we find a blanket that might trap the bat in mid-air, making capture possible.
But we weren't quick enough. When Tim went back up, the bat was nowhere to be found.
In the meantime, Penelope sat on my bed watching Netflix in her bathtowel because in all of the battiness, we forgot about her PJ's. I didn't want to tell her about the bat, but you can only brush off your child's curiosity for so long when you and dad are freaking out. But this weird cartoon, Bernard, on Netflix kept her occupied, so she wasn't too concerned.
Penelope slept on a mattress in August's room that night—and for the rest of the week. Needless to say, no one slept that well. And August figured out how to climb out of his crib. It was an exhausting week.
It was also exhausting because we didn't really know if it was still in our house. It could have left the same way it got in. Tim figured it was going from the basement to our upstairs through a large heat vent. So, after getting some advice from an exterminator friend, he put sticky traps around the vent. We learned that bats are most active at dawn and dusk, so he woke up early to check them, and then also checked in the evenings.
No bat.
Then the most horrible coincidence happened. Two days after Tim saw the bat, Penelope got two little bug bites on her arm 1 centimeter apart from each other. It looked so much like a bat bite.
I would logically think through the situation: She was naked when we saw the bat and hadn't been anywhere the bat was since then. A bite mark wouldn't appear two or three days later. But having a bat in your house drives you mad, and you start to imagine your child foaming at the mouth and dying a horrible rabid death.
But then on Friday, five days after seeing the bat, Tim found it stuck to the sticky traps. (I apologize if you believe this is an inhumane way to catch a bat.) We were rejoicing. Tim finished it off with a shovel, and then took it to Iowa State the following Monday to see if it had rabies. It did not, so I don't even have to question about those bug bites on Penelope's arm.
All this to say, I am so, so, so, thankful for Tim and his efforts to capture, kill, and get the bat tested. He's my bat man.
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