His Name is Stan & We Love Him…I Guess

Around this time last week, we had one of those crazy mornings.  Everything that could go wrong did.  I hit the snooze on my alarm and it never went off again…Greenleigh woke up grouchy…the dog refused to go to the bathroom outside, thus requiring 2 walks instead of 1…it then started to rain during that second walk, after I had gotten ready for work…and so on and so on and so on.  All little things, but when added up, they put us in a major time crunch.

I went upstairs to wake up Hazeline and decided to bring her downstairs to get ready.  Greenleigh was already downstairs, so I figured I could get more done if I got both girls ready in the master bedroom.  I grabbed my adorable toddler out of her crib, complete with morning bedhead, and whisked her down the stairs.  Once I reached the master bedroom, I took off Hazeline’s pajamas and put her on the toilet in our room.  Lucky for me, it was a morning where she was interested in potty training and didn’t fight me on it, but that left Greenleigh without a place to go, so I suggested she try the bathroom in the hallway.  Greenleigh agreed and headed that way.

And then the screaming started.  Blood curdling screams.  I ran to the hall bathroom only to run into Greenleigh, who was running back towards the master bathroom.

“There’s a… lizard…in the… bathroom!  Lizard!!!”, she screeched at the top of her lungs.

Sure enough, when I went to check, there was the teeniest of tiniest lizards totally scared to death – no doubt from Greenleigh’s screeching – hanging out between our shower door and the bath mat.

Okay, so here’s the thing – We live in Florida.  And that hall bathroom?  Well, it leads out to the pool.  It’s very possible that a lizard entered that bathroom as we were going out to the pool and now it’s residing in our house.  It happens from time to time.  But lizards are pretty darn harmless.  And they eat bugs.  So why bother them?  Well, that’s my philosophy at least.  So while I’m not rolling out the red carpet for them, a lizard in our house isn’t going to kill us.  And, let’s not forget, this mom was late.

So I did what any mom would do – I went with it.  “Oh, him?”, I replied.  “That’s just Stan.  He lives here.”  I actually think I held brief introductions considering at this point Hazeline had come from the master bathroom.

Why did I name him Stan?  I have no idea.  He looked like a “Stan”?  I mean, as much as any lizard could look like a “Stan”, I suppose.  But the truth is, I wasn’t concerned about the lizard in the bathroom, I just wanted the girls to calm down and get dressed so we could get out of the house.  I thought by giving him a name it would make him more friendly.  Plus, I could always say that it was “Stan, our friend lizard” if they found another lizard in the house in the future.  All lizards kinda look the same, right?  It’s not like they could ID him or anything.

Greenleigh looked at me curiously.  “His name is Stan?”, she asked.

“Yes, honey.  He’s our friend and helps around the house.   We’re late and we need to go.  Could you please go to the bathroom now?”

I paused for a minute to see if she took the bait.

Surprisingly it worked.  She went to the bathroom, got changed, and we managed to leave the house fairly quickly after that.  Both girls even said goodbye to Stan as we left the house.

I happened to mention the whole “Stan” story to my husband in passing when he called later that morning, but didn’t give it much more thought.  But as the week progressed, Stan became more of a figure in our household.  That bathroom was dubbed “Stan’s Bathroom”.  The girls visited him throughout the day.  They said “hi” and “bye” to him when we came and left the house.  Greenleigh even asked what we should be feeding him.

Night after night when the girls went to bed, I would try to get Stan out of the house, but as it turns out, he’s quite fast.  And just small enough to slip right past you.  By Friday, it was clear that he had no intention of leaving.   Ever.  I decided to call a truce.  I think I might have even muttered the words, “Fine.  Live here.  Just pull your weight and kill some bugs, okay?”.

On Sunday, I was upstairs organizing some clothes when I heard Greenleigh screeching (see a theme here?) and then heard rapid footsteps climbing the stairs.

“Mommy, Mommy!  Hazeline is being mean to Stan!”, she informed me in a panicked tone.

“Oh, okay honey.  I’ll be right down.”, I replied.  After all, I had only been upstairs for all of a minute to bring some clothes up to their rooms.  How bad could it be?  Plus, I couldn’t get near him, so how could Hazeline?

“And Mommy!  That’s not nice to be mean to him…because we love him.”

I immediately looked up from the laundry I was placing in the drawers and into her very concerned eyes.  She clearly loved a lizard that was living between a bath mat and shower door in our guest bathroom.  This obviously went too far.

So I guess we now have a pet lizard?  This was not part of the plan.