The Baby caught his inaugural daycare cold, so the momentum I picked up last week fizzled out pretty spectacularly. Fortunately, his cold never evolved into anything worse than a whole lot of snot, so he’s going back tomorrow for a big chunk of time while I catch up on things. I managed to check a big job off my list this evening after putting him to bed early (because he took one. 30. minute. nap. today. you. guys.) so as a reward to myself, I’m blogging. (Also I had a beer. I earned it.)

The animal kingdom has played a fairly big role in this week’s chaos, on top of The Baby’s cold. On Monday, my brother and mom brought their dogs over to run around since our side of the property is less wooded than theirs.

We recently started letting our two cats outside during the day. Yes, I know this shortens their lifespans. Yes, I know cats spend most of their waking hours murdering for fun. But their yowling was yet another thing keeping The Baby awake, meaning their indoor life expectancy was already rapidly declining, and they wear bell collars to keep them from sneaking up on birds (so far pretty effective.)

I digress.

I knew one of the cats, Charlie, was still outside when the neighbor dogs arrived, and that the dogs sometimes like to chase the cats, but I hadn’t been able to find him to coax him inside and figured he was fully capable of making himself scarce if he didn’t want to be chased.

But he did want to be chased, so he went full Halloween cat and taunted one of the dogs until he took the bait. Then he chased that 15-pound furry meatball about 20 feet up a tree, where Charlie clung pitifully by his armpits to a branch and yowled.

Shit.

I handed The Baby over to my mom. My brother steadied an extension ladder while I tried to coax Charlie, just out of my reach, down from the tree. He calmed down while I was up there, but not enough to try to climb head first down at me.

Realizing I could just about reach him, but didn’t have the number of hands necessary to keep me from falling out of the tree if I were to grab him, I climbed back down, retrieved my Boba soft structured carrier, and climbed back up.

We both returned to earth completely unscathed.

And I had a beer, because I earned it.

In other news, the saga of my unwillingness to sleep train my baby and, in response, his unwillingness to sleep, continues. Today’s second failed nap had me ugly crying on my bed with my head in my hands. The Baby thought I was playing a funny game and giggled hysterically, which made me quit crying and then want to start crying again because I’m such an asshole for getting so mad at my sweet, sweet boy.

Parenting is so hard sometimes, you guys.

(Coincidentally, my tale of cat rescue lines up with today’s WordPress daily prompt… Yay! via Daily Prompt: Tree)