Why Must Hell Break Loose at Bedtime?

I was tucking Middle Child into bed last night when Daughter came in, dragging out her own bedtime. Yeah, sure, you want to say good night to your brother.

Anyway, she found a moth kind of struggling on his bedroom carpet. Middle Child exclaimed, "Great! Put him in one of my specimen jars so I can mount him on a slide for my microscope tomorrow!"

Why not. The moth had a busted wing. Surely it's someone's dinner tonight. So I picked it up and put it away. Daughter quietly objected, environment this, living creature that. Middle Child made his retort. Gonna die eventually this. My future as an entomologist that.

I waded in. "It's bedtime. Why don't I do what I would have done if I found it first: get some toilet paper and send it to a watery grave?" Of course, I got the chorus of NOOOOOOOOO!

So as I was reading the Ripley's Believe It or Not Book of Gross to Middle Child, Daughter kept interrupting, pleading for the life of the moth.

I've been sick. I'm really tired. I relented. Just stop crying, honey.

She released the moth, tucked herself into bed and sighed loudly, "I'll sleep much better tonight."

Middle Child has been extremely pissed with me today.

Husband just alerted me to some new artwork in our bedroom. Three guesses on the artist.