Mouse House

A little story about our week:

Tuesday morning, Nathan and Caleb tell me they can hear scratching and squeaking behind the fridge. Tuesday night, I hear scratching in the walls. Wednesday morning, I see a mouse run across my kitchen floor. Ewww, ewww, ewww. What is the deal with these nasty little things? How can they make a brave, independent woman turn into a quivering, sniveling mess? Not that I'm a brave, independent woman (ha), but I happen to know one who reacts to mice that way. You know who you are.

Wednesday night, enter the mousetraps. Two in the kitchen, two downstairs. I sleep no more than three hours, thanks to my dreams of mice crawling all over me in my bed. At 2:00 a.m., I hear a trap snap in the kitchen. At 6:00 a.m., I can hear that the boys are awake. I call for Caleb, my hero-child, my dragon slayer. He investigates which trap has been sprung, puts on rubber gloves, disposes of the mouse in the outside trash, cleans and disinfects the area. I stay in my bedroom until it is all over. Caleb receives $5 for his services. If he only knew he could name his price. Ewwww. But the mouse is gone, hurray!

Approximately 30 seconds after Caleb has finished the job, we see another mouse run across the kitchen floor. Lovely. We make sure there are two more traps set in the kitchen. Caleb refuses to touch a trap when it is set but is completely fine with checking it to see if a mouse has been caught AND throwing it away with a dead mouse in it. Good system for me! I would rather catch my hand in a trap than have to look at a mouse, alive or dead. Um, especially dead. The other boys want to watch the whole process without getting involved.

So... Thursday afternoon, I have 10 adorable 11-year-old girls in my piano room, practicing a Christmas musical number. In the middle of the song, we hear a trap snap. Another mouse caught in the kitchen. At the end of the music practice, eight girls want to go check the trap. (What the? LOL!) After the girls tell me which trap did the job, it's time to take care of it. Just one problem: Caleb is at a friend's house. I call him home, and he again cleans up the mess. Where did this kid come from? What a gem!

Thursday night, I'm at Caleb and Seth's pack meeting. Nathan and Luke are home. I get a frantic call from Nathan: "Mom! I just saw a mouse run across the living room and toward our bedroom!" Seriously?!? ANOTHER mouse? Ewwww. After pack meeting, I go in to look around. I see the mouse hiding in the back corner of Nathan and Caleb's closet. Here we go again. I lay out paper over the carpet in the closet, and set two traps in the closet. We close the closet doors and set up a barricade along the floor. This demon mouse isn't getting out alive. I reassure the kids that there is no way the mouse can get out of the closet and up on their beds while they're sleeping. I don't necessarily believe it myself, but I want them to be able to sleep.

Early this morning, Nathan comes in to tell me they are about to open the closet. He continues to give me the play-by-play. (Okay, I just typed the play-by-play, but it was so disgusting I deleted it.) Long story short, the mouse is caught in one of the traps and Caleb AGAIN gets rid of it and cleans up. And I again hide in my bedroom until it is over.

So... three mice caught. What now? I guess I buy more traps and set them tonight. I guess we keep setting traps until we stop catching mice, huh? And please don't tell me I can re-use the traps. To me, it's more than worth the 50 cents to not have to extract a dead mouse and then use a trap covered with mousy guts.

Fun stuff, huh? I have a feeling people might be interested in renting Caleb to dispose of their dead mice. I'm thinking business opportunity, LOL! I would be grateful for a string of boring days with nothing worthy of a blog post. And in summation, let me just say this: Ewww, ewww, ewww.