I was going to put this up as a short little post on Instagram or Facebook, but the story is way too long to give it justice. Our baby chicks are SO fired.

SO FIRED.

We get home from church this afternoon and Josh gets ready to run out the door to work as he usually does on a Sunday afternoon. I hang out with Phil while he goes on the potty chair, plotting putting on jeans to run outside and plant potatoes while he naps. When he gets in bed, I read the instructions on the seed potatoes bag and note how it mentions digging a ditch to plant em in.

“Yeah, my pregnant rear is not digging any ditches today,” I tell Josh as he’s getting dressed. We make plans for a team effort on it when our Monday/Tuesday weekend starts tomorrow. He heads off to work, I unload the dishwasher, planning on vegging on the couch for a couple of hours before the baby shower church is throwing for me this afternoon. (EEEEEEP!!)

Before I sit down, I realize we hadn’t made it out to check on the baby chicks yet today. So I waddle on out the back door, enjoying a leisurely walk across the backyard in the sun, with the breeze, and the birds singing.

I think maybe instead I’ll grab that Thou Shalt Not Use Comic Sans book my buddy Kim gave me and read outside once the chicks are fed.

I open the coop door, and move the heat lamp so I can get into the little crate the birds are in. I marvel at how quickly the girls are growing as they jump on top of the little pieces of cardboard we have around the sides of the crate to keep them from squishing through the bars. I fill up their feeders, and throw some scratch on the ground for our year old ladies.

As I reach into the chicks’ crate to get a water container that needs filling, something small moving under the coop catches my eye.

One of our little barred rock chicks had gotten out. And was running free in our huge backyard.

I glanced next door at Carole’s house. Her car was there – I could run over and get her to help me round up this bird. I could run into my house and call her. Either way, the chances I’d lose the location of this baby bird the size of my fist was almost guaranteed.

I want you to picture in your mind’s eye a big fat 9 months pregnant woman still dressed for church wielding a rake in one hand and a plastic milk crate in the other. Waddling as quickly as one can in that state, crouching to flush the bird out from beneath the coop, muttering “you have got to be kidding me” under her breath as the chick slips through a hole in the chain link fence to the area behind the backyard where I was supposed to be blissfully planting potatoes.

As soon as that rotund prego lady goes through the chain link fence gate, and takes three steps towards the fugitive, the bird nimbly hops back through the fence, safely under the coop.

We did this song and dance for 30 minutes. Then she finally zigged when she should have zagged, and I popped the milk crate on top of her. Grabbing her and putting her back in the crate felt like sweet victory.

Until I saw 2 of her sisters also hanging out outside their crate.

Thankfully, those two hadn’t gotten out of the actual coop yet, so they were relatively easy to apprehend. Back to business, I went to fill one of their water dispensers. As I leaned into their crate to put it back, the bottom fell out and I poured water… Like… EVERYWHERE.

Went inside, grabbed a towel. Dried off the wet birds. Did a little more discreet, ladylike swearing.

Found a bird that had poop crusted on her rear end and spent 20 minutes helping her become a respectable woman again.

Sometimes, you just can’t win.

But man, it was funny.