1. The Good: Yesterday Emily had a fantastic day. Starting off in the morning, she decided she wanted to learn how to ride her bike without training wheels. So off they came (off the little bike). Steve took her to the school parking lot and they were back within an hour, him walking, and her riding like she's been doing it forever. She also lost her second tooth, which surprised all of us.

Then that evening at the neighbor's pool, her and the neighbor girl seemed to be silently daring each other to try thing they wouldn't have considered before. Like going off the diving board and the slide without their floaties. If you had seen what she was like the first time in the pool this year, you would understand why this is such a big deal.

Sadly, the events of that day made me feel like my little girl was growing up awfully fast in the span of a day.

2. The Bad: I stayed up a little late because I wanted some time to myself, plus I'm at that time of the month where I get one night where I'm a total insomniac. So after getting caught in the train wreck that is "Showgirls" on VH1, including digitally added bras (badly I must say). I stumbled up to bed with Em at 1:30. She had been asleep on the couch. I wake up an hour later to her stirring in bed (why I put her in our bed I'll never know). I tried to ignore it, but she got up, went to the bathroom and came back crying. She said her ear hurt, itched, and felt like it was blocked up. I did what I could in my sleep stupor, and gave her some Benedryl in the hope of it knocking her on her ass enough to get some sleep. Somehow in the trip to the medicine cabinet, I made the call to her school that she wouldn't be coming in on one hour of sleep. She dozed a little, but we basically got no more quality sleep after that. I think she got some water in her ear from swimming.

She's been crying for daddy all day and looks absolutely exhausted. She did nap shortly, but I'm hoping she gets a good night's sleep tonight, since tomorrow is her last full day of school.

3. The Ugly: Because I don't want to let the cool air-conditioned air out of the house and because I don't want critters moving in, I always tell my girls to make sure all doors are closed. Especially when Snickers is out of his cage, because we don't need to be losing him.

Well, today, my reminders went forgotten and something of the critter variety came in our house. Becca was sleeping on the couch while Em and I were playing PS2. A small movement in the corner of my eye catches my attention. Lo and behold there is a sparrow in our house enjoying the A/C. I figure, no problem. We'll just close the one door, and open the more obvious one and encourage him the heck out of here.

He had other plans. I don't even know everything he landed on, but I think I have to scrub anything that was exposed on the entire first floor, especially in the kitchen. I thought I had him cornered upstairs, but then the bugger slipped under the door to Becca's room. Well now that I had him cornered I thought it would be so easy. Um, no.

Steve joined me and for forty-five hilarious fun-filled minutes we were coaxing that bird out of all sorts of cosy hidey holes and I was of course screaming every time it took flight. If it were a tame bird, I'd have no problem, but I was afraid of this bird hurting itself as it flung itself at the windows in a desperate attempt at escape. Exhausted, we finally cornered the poor thing and trapped it in a box, got it outside and let it go, minus a few feathers lost as it careened off the ceiling and walls.

At one point, Steve cursed and said it had no meaning. I countered that it was certainly full of meaning. He wanted to play bird baseball, I protested, telling him I wasn't about to clean that mess out of my little girl's room.

I do however have a mess to clean. Lest you think we got the best of that bird unscathed, I offer you what remains of Becca's room.