The punchline.

There was a dead bird on the back deck.
A sparrow, I think.

I noticed her outside the window Monday morning.
Something about her reminded me of Peyton.

Her stillness.
Her beauty.

Death couldn't steal that from either of them.

We have a large window at the back of our living room.
By the way the sparrow had landed - stomach up, wings folded over her chest - I assumed that she had flown into the glass and broken her neck.

I hope she never saw it coming.
Never felt it.
I would like to think that she flew straight from this world to the next, skipping the painful part of her journey altogether.

The babies and I spend the majority of our time in the living room, and on Monday, every time I passed the window, I stopped to pay homage to that little bird. When Hubs came home I told him about her, and he agreed, upon seeing her, that she was indeed beautiful.

Monday had been a particularly rough day. As you may recall from my post earlier this week, Squeaks decided to keep life interesting by eating the stuffing out of a diaper, which had resulted in a call to Poison Control, so by the time we were finally getting the snowflakes ready for bed, it was nearly 8PM and I was fully exhausted - and starving.

Hubs headed out to grill some steaks while I fed, changed, and put down the babies. It took longer than usual, which was probably due to the fact that we had had a very full day with little napping. When I felt comfortable that the babies were going to nod off, I headed downstairs to help with dinner.

Fifteen minutes later Squeaks let out a terrible shriek from upstairs, and Hubs, having finished his grilling, went up to help her. I could hear him rocking her in their room, because our rocker is long overdue for some WD-40, but Squeaks was still inconsolable, so I put dinner aside and went running upstairs, figuring only the boob would calm her.

That's when it happened.

As I was turning the corner in front of the stair case, I nearly tripped over a dark lump in the center of the hallway. It was my dead bird.

Charlotte, our suddenly very proud looking puppy, padded by, saw my expression, and turned to head for the hills.

There was bird everywhere - little feathery bits in my hallway. My kitchen. The family room.

I called, yelled, screamed at the top of my lungs to Hubs something along the lines of, "Nag! Nag! Nag!... I told you about that bird!... Nag!... What do you mean you forgot?... Nag!... Well of course the dog went after her... she's a dog!"

His reaction to the whole episode was a non-reaction, which, if I am being honest here, made my blood boil.

Let's call upon another earlier post, shall we? The one where I admit to being a bit of a germophobe, and by a bit - I mean a huge, what do you mean you open the bathroom door with your bare hands and don't wash your hands before eating? germophobe.

So here it was, now 9PM, and I had been up since 5AM (when the boy gave me a urine soaked wake up call) had dealt with the dog peeing on the floor, had swept silica infused diaper bits out of my daughter's mouth, placed a call to Poison Control, been vomited all over, dealt with two non-napping cranky snowflakes, had not eaten so much as a bite of food all day, and now, to top it off, had Jackson Pollack style bird bits spread throughout my house.

I was NOT a happy camper.

I did the only thing I could do - mope, fume, fuss - took care of Squeaks and then got to cleaning.
And cleaning...
And cleaning...

It took me 2+ hours to mop all of the floors (three passes of course because of that whole dead bird thing) - 1st- soap and water, 2nd - vinegar and water, 3rd - a thin layer of rubbing alcohol where I had seen bits of birdie "just in case." Of course the entire time I was doing this, I was thinking about the previews for that movie Contagion. Come on, you've seen them - where the bird flu wipes out all of humanity. Anyhow, I guess I was focused more on that, than the fumes, because when the floor was finally cleaned to my liking, I felt sick - light-headed, nauseated, dizzy. Being sick got me to thinking about why I felt sick, and when I realized it was probably not early onset bird flu, but instead the result of not opening the window while using rubbing alcohol, I couldn't help but wonder if having breathed so much of it in could have any affect on my breastmilk.

So I did what any ridiculous sane person in my position would do. I called Poison Control ... again.

I explained my situation and they told me that they had "no data on the effects of rubbing alcohol and breastmilk."

Huh?

I mean it's rubbing alcohol! A staple. Most households have at least a bottle of the stuff lying around. You would think they would have some data. Anyway the woman referred me to the Pregnancy Risk Line and told me I would have to wait till the morning to call because they were closed. Uh... yeah. Not helpful since the babies eat a hundred times a night, so she told me to call my Ped, who told me to call the Children's Hospital nurse on call, who told me to call Poison Control!

Long story short - the nurse finally told me I should pump and dump, so I did, and wouldn't you know it, the second, the VERY second I finally got done pumping and dumping and was ready to sit down, the babies woke up to be fed.

I have come to realize that sometimes in life you are the one telling the joke, and sometimes you are the punchline.

There is no doubt in my mind.
Monday - I was the punchline.