if there was ever a day where I needed caffeine, today was it.

My weekend can best be expressed chronologically in three short sentences:

1. Evan can climb out of a pack & play.
2. We have rats.
3. Evan can climb out of his crib.

As I’m sure is obvious, it was a phenomenal weekend. We went down to my parents’ house for a visit on Saturday night and when we put Evan down to bed in his pack & play, he nonchalantly walked out of the room .06 seconds later clutching his blanket. He was quite pleased with himself. Needless to say, we were not. After several gettings-up and puttings-back-down, we decided that the issue was that the pack & play was too close to the bed, which he was using to vault himself easily out. We fixed that, then he fell asleep and we didn’t see him again until Sunday morning. We thought our problems were solved.

Until “nap time” on Sunday. I use quotes because there was no nap to be had. I put him down, he got back up. I put him down, he got back up. I put him down, he got back up. Ad nauseam. Finally, I gave up in extreme frustration… after all, we were at Grandma’s house and sometimes we let things slide. My husband, ever the optimist, thought that he wouldn’t try to do it at home. I was hopeful.

So, after a napless afternoon, followed by a massively shocking tantrum brought on by said naplessness, he fell asleep for an hour. At 4 pm. Not helpful! Once he woke up, we drove home.

Once we arrived home, I spent the first few minutes cleaning up some things we had left out, straightening up and taking out the trash. Now, we have seen some mysterious animal droppings outside by our trash cans recently, but so far have never spied the animal(s) who left it. When I opened the trash can to drop the bag in, I saw some furtive scurrying. I didn’t get a good look, but the shape and size of the scurrier said one thing to me: RAT. Horrified, I quickly threw the trash into the can and ran back into the house. My heart was pounding.

I was trying to calm myself down but the heebie-jeebies were getting the best of me. After a few minutes I told my husband what I had seen. He worked up the courage to go out there and check it out but didn’t see anything. We decided that the only option is to call the pest control company and get them to come out ASAP.

With nothing more we could do on the rodent situation, we turned our attention to getting Evan fed and bathed. Fortunately, he was really tired and didn’t take long to fall asleep. We thought for sure we were in the clear. We turned in around 10 pm and fell asleep. Then, at 12:49 a.m., I woke up to the sound of small footsteps and saw Evan standing there saying “want to get in Daddy’s bed.” After some stops and starts, we decided the best course of action was to not talk to him or engage with him, but to take him right back to his bed every time he got up. We did that about 10-15 more times and then he cried for a couple of minutes and fell asleep. Victory. (Sort of.) But I’m sure the two hours he spent awake in the middle of the night are not helping his attitude and behavior today.

And did I mention that today is his first day at his new preschool? When it rains, it pours.