In every marriage, there's a moment in which you get to be the one who is right. My moment came on Saturday night.

On Saturday, a series of events led to my victory. 

1. A two-week heatwave was flaming out in a 105-degree burst of glory.
2. My brother- and sister-in-law and their two daughters were staying the weekend.
3. A door between the garage and the house was left open.

When I realized the door had been open, I went to look for Petunia. She's never left the garage before, but she has visited it when I've left the kitchen door open, and on the night in question, both doors to the garage were open in an attempt to release the atomic air trapped inside. Since Petunia is terrified of my youngest niece, I assumed she'd be hiding out in the basement. 

Halfway down the stairs, I saw something flutter. No, FLAP.

I ran back upstairs and yelled to Beloved there was something with WINGS in the basement. 

Beloved: "Wings? Really? Are you sure it's not a cicada?"

I may not be in Mensa, but I know the difference between a cicada and a bird or bat (I wasn't sure which one it was at the time.) There's a slight size differential.

This is a cicada. (image credit: Gardener41 on Flickr)

This is a fucking bat. (image credit: blmurch on Flickr)

Me: IT IS NOT A CICADA.

He dropped whatever he was doing and went downstairs. Seconds later, we heard a loud crash from the basement. 

Beloved: JESUS CHRIST! BAT! BAT!

(I may have allowed myself a smile)

I went to get a broom to join my knight in shining armor downstairs. He was crouched in front of the door to the half-finished bathroom, which leads to a half-finished, well, room room that we use as a tornado shelter. Nothing in our basement is finished, so we don't spend a lot of time down there. 

Beloved looked back at me, sheer panic in his eyes. I could see the bat flying back and forth between the room-room and the bathroom, looking for all the world like the bat on a string you see on The Muppets.

Beloved: I think he's getting tired.

My BIL came down the stairs and I sent him for a weapon. Then I gave Beloved my broom, because the man was trying to catch a bat with a toy butterfly net. I headed up to re-arm myself when I passed my BIL storming down the basement carrying a shovel. I was pawing through the garage when he reappeared. 

BIL: "He says we need something softer."

Me: "Is he worried about the bat?"

BIL: "No, he's worried about the walls."

I handed my BIL two plastic baseball bats and grabbed a bucket. As we re-entered the house, we heard Beloved yelling at the top of his lungs.

Beloved: "WHERE ARE YOU GUYS? A LITTLE HELP HERE???"

We rushed down the stairs, baseball bats swinging, to find Beloved crouched on the floor. Just the tiniest bit of webbed claw showed out from under the broom and butterfly net. BIL and I stared in shock. The bat was chittering away like a pissed-off rat.

Beloved: "GET THE BAG!"

I had no idea what he was talking about, and neither did BIL. Then I noticed a paper bag behind BIL. I tried to hand Beloved the bucket, as it seemed way more useful and user-friendly than a paper bag, but Beloved had gone to a place that doesn't hear reason. He is not fond of bats.

Finally BIL handed Beloved the bag and they got the bat out into the yard, where PETA will be glad to hear it was released. I admit at the point at which I heard it cursing us out in bat language, I wasn't too keen to kill it, but I was also thinking CHILDREN RABIES CHILDREN RABIES CHILDREN RABIES, as mothers are wont to do.

The next morning, the bat was gone, so we believe he lived to tell his story on his own blog.

AND I WAS TOTALLY RIGHT. Not a cicada, honey. 

NOT A CICADA.

Today a post that I spent hours writing went up on BlogHer about writing and especially writing after kids. Here's a link if you are interested!

Last Thursday we rented a pontoon on a nearby lake so we could practice for when one of my numerous families-in-law come down for a visit. We drove it great! The 16-year-old who rented us the boat said I dock like a pro! We jumped in and paddled about and lo, it was so fun!

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

Sunday we took the little angel and one of her friends down to a sailing club. The two of them hauled it onto a 10-foot sailboat with me and proceeded to fret alternately about how hot it was and losing their sunglasses if I tipped the boat over. (Of course I did not tip the boat over. But the other two boats with kids piloting them were permanently laid out, so I understand their concern.) I accidentally slammed into some rocks due to a random luff-and-blow. But I got us out of it! And the boat guy did not have to come save me! And then, at the very end when we were not far from shore, I finally gave in and let them jump in the water, because a half-hour of trying to sail any boat by yourself with two tweeners is enough to test the patience of even a saint.

Monday I went to an event for my wonderful friend the artist who did not know he was an artist until he was 47 but managed to somehow get himself a movie premiere, and then I rushed home to get the little angel from the neighbor's house. My neighbor had invited her two nieces over and God Bless America, they were actually braiding each other's hair when I showed up. (I AM SO NOT KIDDING.) The little angel mentioned her ear hurt where it was pierced.

As in, bright red and swollen.

As in totally infected and needs a run of antibiotics and no lake or pool until it subsides.

As in all that practicing and we had to cancel the pontoon for Friday.

And here, Diane, is a time in which catastrophize practicing did not pay off. Now it's 1:1.

[Editor's Note: I wasn't compensated at all for this post. I only linked to the swings so you could visualize, as we all know I suck at photography.]

The tree must have already been a hundred years old by the time I met it and its black tractor tire swing hanging from a long yellow rope. It wasn't the sort of tire swing I see hanging on suburban playground sets, laid out horizontally with three ropes meeting in the center. This tire was hollowed out with handles cut in the sides, so you could sit deep inside it like an astronaut in a rocket booster and hang on for dear life.

I remember my father and uncles taking turns pushing us so high my toes seemed to crest the roof line of my cousin's house. We'd beg them to keep going long after we could tell they were regretting ever hanging that rope. In my imagination, the swing got higher off the ground every year as the tree grew, taking the swing with it inch by inch.

I loved that swing.

Last Christmas, Beloved bought me a canvas sky swing, the kind made out of canvas and wood that you see at home shows and think, "Man, I really need one of those," but you never buy it because it's totally frivolous. (I love gifts like that.) We hung it this summer from one of the forty-year-old trees outside our house, but I could never get a turn because my daughter and her friends were always in it, and it's not a swing meant for kids. It's a swing meant for long novels and a stepladder end-table to hold my glass of wine. So I bought the ladybug swing.

The rope wasn't long enough, so my husband and the neighbor got more and spent two hours getting the rope over one of the top boughs. My daughter, fearless as always, taught herself to run and jump onto it that afternoon, though she begs -- just as I did -- for the sort of above-the-head, underdog push only an adult can give, the kind that sends the swing twisting and jittering ten feet in the air as the child begins a methodical pendulum ride that's as pleasing to watch as it is to ride. Back and forth. Back and forth. 

I had to buy a timer because the neighbor kids all fought over the swing, ignoring hot tubs and motorized kid cars and wooden swingsets and park slides for the $23 ladybug swing, which has become so popular we unclip its little green string from the long white rope at night. It's a treat, something brought out only when there is time to sit back and inhale the scent rolling off the tomato plants and listen to the morning doves argue over safflower seed.

The swing is really a time machine, and it lands a few times a week in my cousin's yard in Iowa.

On the way home from a lunchtime errand run, the little angel spilled a big blork of frozen yogurt all over my car Vicki's floor. Like a super big blob the size of her fist (it was in a cup from Costco). 

I ran to the kitchen to grab a wet rag, and a rag with soap on it and a cup of water. After I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, I took out a 20-pack of paper towels from the trunk.

And I threw it on the garage floor. 

I may have punched it a little.

They should sell 20-packs of paper towels as anger management tools. IT.WAS.AWESOME.

Then I found the shop vac and sucked up the water. I haven't gone out there to smell it yet. It's like 90 degrees here today. I'm scared I didn't get it all out and I will have a recreation of that one time she spilled a bottle of milk on the floor of the Explorer and we didn't realize it until it had soured. That smell removed at least three layers of skin from my nasal passages and it has taken all eight years to grow them back.

I left the paper towels on the floor. I'll deal with them later. At least I didn't say anything horrible to my kid, right? 

Argh.

I ordered the skirt to use up a gift card when I got the shoes she grew out of six months ago.

When it arrived, it was impossibly huge. I knew it would take years for her to grow into it. So I put it away at the bottom of a drawer.

I was sad when she grew out of the shoes, because I didn't remind her to wear them nearly enough. They were green with little pink animals on the toes. I can't remember which animals. I should've looked closer before I gave them away.

This morning when I dropped her off at summer camp, I realized she was wearing it: the impossibly large skirt. And she had pigtails she did herself without any help from me.

Last night before her swimming lesson, she begged me to get in the pool with her. I didn't want to, but I did. We played dolphin and I swirled her around, and as I did, I saw a woman with a toddler doing the same thing, and I told my girl stories about when she was two, her long legs hanging down nearly to my knees as I held her in the water like a child much younger than eight. I hugged her fiercely and was glad I'd plunged in -- to the pool, to motherhood -- even though the water was shockingly cold on impact.

I hugged her goodbye this morning, the child who used to throw herself at the door of daycare screaming, "MOMMY, DON'T LEAVE ME!" and she smiled and picked her way through the crowd to sit by her friends, flipping her pigtail over her shoulder without looking back.

And all the drive home, I thought about the skirt, and how it isn't too big any longer.

I can't do it. I can't do it! I can't buy my eight-year-old daughter a bikini. Or even a tankini. I do not want to see her exposed midriff!

I see other little girls at the pool wearing bikinis. They look cute. My mom friends let their girls wear bikinis and tankinis. I'm not judging.

But there we were in Target looking at the swimwear selection. She was begging for a bikini, and I kept looking at her and looking at the swimwear, and looking at her.

"Nope. Not happening," I said, and picked out eight super-cute one-piece swimsuits.

I'm that mom. The mom who won't let her girl wear heels even though Suri Cruise has changed little girls' footwear selections until she gets old enough to just have her Playboy cover and be done with it. I'm the mom who pulled her daughter out of a dance academy after seeing the nine-year-olds dressed like Katy Perry at the recital. The mom who won't let her daughter get even a tankini.

I told Beloved about my decision when I got home. He paled beneath his tan. "I can't take it," he said. "No way is she wearing a bikini."

At least I'm not the only prude parent in this house.

My doctor told me I should do yoga for my upper back pain. She told me this on the same day that she gave me a referral to a surgeon and a gastro doctor. Me not really being the yoga type, I bought Jillian Michael's version. It's a half hour of teeth-gnashing, panting hell, and that is the beginner version. For someone who has been lifting weights for the past fifteen years, Jillian Michaels can be quite humbling.

I had to take about two weeks off from Jillian due to the incisions in my leg. Of all things exercise, I was most concerned yoga would actually stretch the areas so much it would cause problems, so I waited until it was way healed before I tried it again ... yesterday.

I did not realize you could lose muscle strength so damn fast. I took five days off after my surgery before walking a few miles. The minute my surgeon cleared me after ten days, I went back to weighted squats and all that jazz with The Firm. I didn't expect any problems from Jillian, other than you know, her being JILLIAN.

As I was attempting not to fall off my hands during the side planks, the little angel walked over to me. She sniffed and stared at the sweat rolling off my red face as I sucked in air like a vacuum cleaner.

"You know, Mommy," she said. "It's a choice to do that to yourself."

I started laughing so hard I did fall. Off my pride. Ouch.

Hello, friends. I'd like to introduce you to a new character at Surrender, Dorothy. Meet DJ Nibbles.

The little angel introduced me to DJ Nibbles last night when she was getting ready for her bath. He was rocking it old school on the manual turntable/hipster baby belt buckle I got when I used to review stuff for the ever-fabulous Liz and Kristen at Cool Mom Picks.

DJ Nibbles didn't even know what he was excited about last night, but he knew it was going to be big enough to bring back-up dancers.

Would you like to hear why DJ Nibbles is excited? He's excited today because it's my sister's 35th birthday, because it's the little angel's last day of second grade and because the pathology report says The Lump is BENIGN, baby. Which is good because I couldn't handle one more day of wondering if I was going to have to reschedule summer plans around my chemotherapy. 

It may happen someday. BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.

What is DJ Nibbles celebrating for you today?