Strangeness around the house

The other day I was lying down with Kate trying to get her to take a nap when Molly interrupted to ask, "What's that strange 'ts ts' noise?" I told her it was probably just insects outside.

A while later, when Kate was asleep and I went to the kitchen I noticed this ...

 It looked as though it had been nibbled by mice. Odd.

 Then I saw this -- claw marks in the corn.

And this, a giant bite out of a banana.

 
Which led my glance upward to this... a giant hole in the window screen!

And just outside the hole, looking at me as if wondering when I'd go away so he could finish his snack?

This guy!

Grrrrr!!!! This picture is actually from today. I've been keeping the window closed, but each day he comes back and chews away more of the screen, trying to get in. I even put Frank's Red Hot all around. Yet here he is.

So that happened.

It was so annoying and bizarre that it almost overshadowed the discovery that Jim made a few hours later -- our Night Blooming Cereus (aka the Ugly Plant) had its first ever flower! We missed it, of course. The flower blooms only one night and we hadn't even noticed the bud forming. But at least now, after many years of owning this thing, we know that the bloom is possible!

Anyway, Molly saw her classroom and met her teacher (who lives just down the street from us!), Kate had her first successful grandparent sleepover and then a second a few nights later, Molly had her first friend sleepover... But whatever. There was a squirrel in our kitchen. A squirrel. In our kitchen. Man, what a week.