Monster Cookies

There is a MOUSE in the HOUSE.

Author: Amber

Yikes.

It is true. There is a mouse in our house. At least one.

I saw it with my own two eyes. And the eyes of five children who sat in shock while their responsible adult caregiver screamed and cowered on the couch darted about curiously wondering what it was that broke this woman down in this way.

At least they already had their lunch.

Because there was no way that I was going to go back into the kitchen.

My husband worked upstairs, and somehow did not hear my screams of terror and my yells for him to please come down and help me.

Good thing the mouse wasn’t something more dangerous. Like an axe murderer.

Luckily, I had my cell phone in my coat pocket. I was still wearing my coat from rushing home from a playdate to meet the school kids and make them lunch. Everything happens for a reason, right?

Normally my cell phone lives in my purse with a dead battery.

Anyway, I phoned my husband, who was just 1.5 floors above me and begged him to please please PLEASE come downstairs. He did.

The children whimpered. “Daaaaaaadeeeeeeeeeee!”

I tried to answer their questions truthfully without telling them the scary truth.

Jon baited and set out all three of our traps.

Daniel ate his lunch sitting on the table.

Joshua hoped that it wasn’t a girl mouse, and that if it was, he hoped that she wasn’t married.

My dayhome boy tried to reassure us, “Don’t worry, mice only have babies in the springtime and spring is past so it won’t be until NEXT spring that there would be babies.”

I had to correct him. I had to validate my reaction (yes, I admit, my OVERreaction) to seeing this fuzzy creature tearing around my kitchen.

“No, you are wrong. Mice don’t only have babies in the springtime. They have babies like, every TWO WEEKS or so.”

Their eyes all widened as the seriousness of this issue smacked them in their cute little faces!

After assigning each of us a title - Jon as the Protector, I the Worrier and himself as the Panicker, Josh refused to enter the kitchen to throw away his crusts and napkin. He tiptoed quickly and carefully to the door and put on his shoes and coat and ran out to go to school without kissing me goodbye (he usually will come back if he forgets to hug and kiss me on his way out).

At bedtime, out of nowhere, Josh says, “I think we should get a pet owl.”

Ah, my sweet and clever little worrier. I hope that he sleeps well tonight. I did tell him that of course mice cannot climb or jump so they can’t come upstairs. I tell myself that too. Often. Sometimes I say it out loud to mask my inner voice that screams ‘Mice are fantastic jumpers‘.

Good grief.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.