Not so cute

Well I had a bit of an adventure today. I had just finished feeding Anna her cereal and put her in her seat and gone back to get the empty bowl to put it in the sink. I glanced out the kitchen door and there was a monkey sitting on the wall on the edge of our balcony. I thought about getting the camera but he was pretty close to the open door and I didn't want to risk him getting in the house by taking my eyes off of him. As I was figuring out how to reach out and close the door without getting any closer to him, he ran into the kitchen.

Naturally I was freaked out. Anna was between me and him, I didn't know what kind of temperament he was going to have and I had no idea how to get him out. Plus I had food on the counter and didn't know where he was going to go. And, these are not cute, little monkeys, they are big (sitting, he probably came up to the counter) and ugly. So we stared at each other for a while while I was thinking about how to coerce him to get out without getting any closer to him or making him mad and rushing at either of us. I started trying to shoo him out and raising my arms. After staring at me for a little while, he ran into the pantry (away from the door).

I was worried, not knowing what kind of havoc he would create in the pantry. Fortunately, he just pulled a bag of dried garbanzo beans off the shelf ripping the bag open and spilling them on the floor. I stayed out of the line from the door to the pantry and tried to shoo him out. He came out and looked at me for a little bit before finally going out the door and down off the balcony. As I was watching him go, I saw that there was another monkey sitting on a ledge outside Anna's bedroom window. I was worried he would come in too so I tried to shoo him away as well while closing the door. He followed the first without coming in.

Once they were gone, I closed all the doors and immediately sent a message to Jason to tell him all about it. Typing was a little tricky though because I was shaking. Anna, during all of this, thought I was hilarious as I was shooing the monkeys. I was glad that my fear didn't transfer onto her. Although maybe it did because she was pretty fussy afterwards. Needing to calm her down helped me to calm myself and I was able to laugh at the situation when I told it to Vernell.