Day 6. Bats.

Today’s excitement fell upon us.  Literally.  Plop, squeak, and there under a palm tree, lay a very tiny, very startled – in fact we assumed it was dead – bat.  You don’t expect to see a baby bat, spread out in the morning sunshine, as you’re going about your business, but there he (she?) was, like a tiny leather-clad prehistoric fossil.  We stood staring for a few minutes, then he (she) let out a great big sigh whereupon the kids went ballistic.  Operation Save The Bat was on.  It involved: a leaf (useless); a plastic spade (useless);  a nappy(worse than useless – unless you’re on a mission to kill, I suggest you avoid using nappies in any task involving small animals);  and  - more successfully - reams of toilet paper.

Each of these was handed to me with an order to “Go On!”.  I admit that I had just assumed one of the kids was going to pick it up and – heavens knows, how – deal with it.  (This is what I hate most about parenting;  the assumption by them that because you are older and crankier and better at pretending to know stuff, you can fix things.)  So anyway, I took each of the props and did my best to pick the poor creature off the ground, but it was like trying to use chopsticks while wearing oven-gloves (which I have tried, in fact, so I know what I’m talking about.) Finally, I managed to scoop him (her) up with a wad of toilet paper, at which  point he (she.  IT dammit.) got  an enormous burst of energy and – ohgodohgodohgod – CRAWLED UP MY ARM.   I shrieked and, killing any parenting credibility I may have possessed, whimpered to the Boy to takeitofftakeitoff.  But those fuckers have CLAWS, and its claws were hanging on for dear life to ME.   Eventually I managed to prise it off and shake it into the Boy’s outstretched hands, where it did its sideways-scuttling-trick again and dangled from his arm while we...

At which point I realised I had no clue what to do next.  Suggestions included:

• I have a doctor’s kit upstairs  (the Girl)
• We have to bring it to a vet (the Boy)
• We could make it a bed in my doll’s house (the Girl)
• We HAVE to bring it to a vet (the Boy)
• Let’s wrap it in a leaf and leave it for a fairy to mind (the Girl)
• Eat! Miaow Woof Woof!  (the Baby)
• WE HAVE TO BRING IT TO A VET (the Boy)

Needless to say, we did none of the above.  Not even the Baby's suggestion – which, if you think about it, probably made the most sense.  (Or at least leave it for a snake to find.)  Instead we found a dark corner and prised the bat from the Boy’s arm onto one of their spongey water-squirter things, and perched it upside down to recover.  (That’s what I told them.  To die in peace was really what I meant.)

Then we came home, scrubbed disinfectant on our arms until they bled, and put up the Christmas tree.  There is something deeply unsatisfactory about a fake Christmas tree, no matter how, um, "cute" the children’s homemade decorations.  And now it has just struck me that what we should have done was bring the bat home and put it in the tree.  Dammit.