Busted

           Sitting in the living room doing what I do best, folding laundry, Sophia came running in yelling for me, here is how it went:
Sophia:  Mom come see what Jackson has, he says he's gonna keep them.
Me:       Keep what, (I thought he had probably found some more frogs)?
Sophia:  Just come see.

As I got closer to the patio door I could hear this squeaky, whiny kind of screaming and I knew immediately it wasn't frogs in the blue pool barrel.

Jackson: See what I caught, I'm gonna keep 'em and make them my pets.

Looking into the barrel I see two very frightened baby squirrels.

Me:         Jack how did you catch them?
Jackson:  With the pool net, they just came up to the steps so I scooped them up.
Me:         Oh you have to let them go, their mama is probably looking for them. Look how scared they are.

Reluctantly he agrees so I tip the barrel over and expect them to run away. One did but the other just kind of scurried to the center of the yard. I grabbed the pool net and gave the little thing a nudge on the butt. It finally ran into the storage shed, so I let it be.

About an hour later in runs Sophia again:

Sophia:  That baby squirrel is sleeping in the backyard. Jackson's friend is gonna shoot it with Nerf gun.

I ran outside and there it was just laying there, but it was breathing. I ran back into the house put on a pair of Steve's work gloves, grabbed a couple of small towels and went outside to pick it up. The poor little thing was very lethargic. So I did what every mother would do, I snuggled it to my chest and tried to rub some warmth into it's little body. Never having any experience with baby squirrels I went to my brother-in-laws house across the street and had him do some checking on what I should do.
Once I got back home he called and said to keep it warm and "DO NOT" give it milk. I needed to re-warm it's body and give it a few drops of warm water to re hydrate until I could get it some pedialite.
So here I was walking around with a baby squirrel trying to re-warm the poor thing. I got out my medicine syringe and gave it a few drops of water. This appeared to make it perk up a little wiggling and reaching it's cute little paw out from the towels. So for the next hour or so I walked around snuggling this baby squirrel to keep it warm when I realized it hadn't moved in quite a while. Taking a closer look it, it appeared to have   died right there in my hands. I asked Steve to take a look at it. He unwrapped it and felt around it's chest for a heat beat. We have never had any experience with wild animals and couldn't tell if it had died or maybe it was just a shallow breather. Steve told me to put it on  the DVR and let it lay there for a while to see if maybe it went into hibernation mode. So laying there on the cable box (where it's warm) we checked on it every few minutes and after about half an hour we realized it had passed.
What I perceived as perking up was probably it's dying breath. So I had walked around the house cradling a dead squirrel to my chest for an hour.
To make it easier on the kids we quietly grabbed a small plastic bag from the cupboard and placed the  deceased squirrel in it and Steve hurried outside with it. The we told the kids it didn't make it and left it at that.
About 20 minutes later Sophia came into the kitchen where Steve and I were with her hand on hip and a look of accusation on her face:

Sophia:  Soooo, where's the baby squirrel?
Me:       You know honey it died.
Steve:    Yep Sophia, it's now in squirrel heaven.

Gyrating her head and giving only a look Sophia could give she said,  "Oh no it's not  I saw you put it in a  garbage bag and take it out to the trash, that is NOT squirrel heaven".

So much for trying to be sneaky, we were so busted!!