I’m not going to go so far as to say I’m nesting or anything, but yesterday I walked through my front door after getting the mail and I was like, “OMG CHRISTMAS HAS TO GO.” Yeah, I think that’s just a normal person’s response to having Christmas decorations up two weeks after Christmas. But unlike when I was putting the decorations up and needed to do a little bit every day, yesterday I took everything down in a few hours. I just needed it down. Annabel was upset about it, but I kept saying, “but Christmas has to come down so it can be your birthday!” She accepted this, but still needed to say goodbye to every single decoration and that is no exaggeration. She kissed every ornament and hugged every Santa, stocking, and wreath. It was cute but slow going.

Annie’s birthday party is next weekend, so now that Christmas is all put away I can make my daily party-prep to-do lists for Mike. Spoiler alert, his daily tasks all involve cleaning. I tell him it’s because he’s just so good at it, but it’s also because if I said, “you can put together these goody bags,” he’d just eat the candy. Also because I hate actually cleaning. Although maybe I am nesting because I willingly vacuumed today.

After Annie went to bed, Mike and I were sitting on the couch, watching quality programming, when I heard a faint chirping noise. “Do you hear that?” I asked Mike. He was super-engrossed in Parenthood and didn’t realize what I was asking at first, but after I muted the TV he could hear it. Chirp chirp. Chirp, chirp, chirp. “IT IS A MOTHER EFFING CRICKET IN THE HOUSE I JUST VACUUMED.” One of us might have yelled that.

Mike got up and did some searching, but he couldn’t figure out where it was unless it was chirping, and it didn’t chirp if either of us were moving. After a few moments of standing still, we heard a chirp and Mike said, “Heather…it’s coming from inside the house.” He was not taking it seriously.

“Mike, somehow a cricket got into this house. I think whoever let it in should have to dispose of it.”

“Rigby probably let it in when she went to the bathroom.”

“Um, Rigby doesn’t leave the back door open when she goes in the backyard. I know a man who does, though.”

He just stared at me.

“Okay, can you at least google, ‘how to catch a cricket, and then kill it so it never chirps in our house again?”

While he googled, I slowly started walking around the room. I felt pretty confident that it was under the couch, but Rigby, who normally goes nuts over these things, was completely uninterested. In fact, she was laying on the couch with her eyes closed. “Look Heather, Rigby is so relaxed by the chirping that she’s asleep. It’s like she’s in the great outdoors!”

Instead of telling me ways to catch the cricket, Mike instead told me all sorts of facts about crickets. Like they can live for a month (GREAT). That some people keep them as pets (not us!). Some people even bring their pet crickets to fight against other crickets as a sport (omg).

“MIKE WE ARE NOT KEEPING IT.”

“Heather, what if we find it and it has a tiny top hat and a wise word for every situation?”

We didn’t find the cricket but Mike apparently wants it to be his conscience. Not gonna happen. But if there is still a cricket in my house in another month I will GO CRAZY. Anyone ever caught a cricket before?