Eeeeeeek!

So a week or so ago . . . wait, let me back up even farther . . . a year or so ago I noticed some (what I believed to be) mouse poop in our basement. In my "office" even . . . the nerve!!! We never laid eyes on an actual mouse, just saw some evidence of one. So we got some sticky traps and put them out. Once one of them had a little fur on it, but nothing more . . . ever. The "evidence" seemed to go away so I thought the problem had somehow resolved itself. Whoo hoo!

Fast forward to a week or so ago: We store our overflow of pantry stuff (cereal, pasta, juice, etc.) in the basement on some shelving in the laundry room . . . 7 people eat a lot and it doesn't all fit in the (beautiful, newly spiffed-up -- see below!) kitchen cupboards. We have always kept stuff down there . . . without problem . . . until now. I grabbed a box of cereal from the shelf the other day and noticed a little corner of the cardboard box had been chewed, and the plastic bag inside . . . and all that was left of my huge box of cereal were a few crumbs. Yikes! Yuck! I tried not to freak out and told Kirb we had mice (as my dad so sweetly pointed out, "fat mice") in the basement again and we agreed we should pick up some traps. Well we hadn't gotten around to that yet (really, I don't know what we've been doing . . . possibly keeping up with 5 kids, giving the kitchen a face life, spending time with out-of-town company . . . )

Now fast forward to this morning . . . I am down in the basement. The kids are pretty much ready for school . . . Friday mornings they go to school early because they are in "Chess Club" that meets on Fridays before school (love it!), so I drop them off there. From the basement I hear screaming. I can tell right away that this is not your average fighting sibling/"he is annoying me"/"she hit me"/"can't find my toothbrush" kind of scream. It's for real. I go upstairs to all 3 big kids yelling about having seen a mouse . . . on the main floor!!! Not in the basement where we do laundry and store extra "junk" and play in the summer when it's not freezing down there, but ON THE MAIN FLOOR where we live and eat and sleep! Now I'm mad! They said it ran out of the bathroom and into the hall and headed for the boys room. I am super grossed out and, honestly, a little scared! I ask Jacob (who is pretty calm) if he's afraid of it, he says "No, but I don't want to get rabies". I assure him he won't (although I'm not sure it was the truth) and tell him to go in his room and see if he can see it . . . he claims to not be scared of the mouse, but doesn't do it . . . neither do I! Lydia is hysterically sobbing on top of the bench in our kitchen! She is terrified. Rebekah thinks we should name it . . . "until we can kill it anyway", she adds. I pack up the kids as quick as I can and leave the house!

I drop the big kids off at chess club and Joey off at ELL . . . long story . . . obviously he is not an English Language Learner, but I'll post that longish, funny story another time if I remember. Anna & I go to the (mouse-free) Y, stop at the hardware store and buy all manner of mouse annihilating stuff and pick Joe back up at ELL . . . they do have curb-side pick up, so that's a perk even if he doesn't need to learn English.

Now we are home and I am anxiously awaiting Kirb's arrival so he can help me out . . . well, after he takes his sister and her family to the airport . . . they are going to (mouse-free) Florida for, like, an insane amount of time (2 weeks or something). Lucky them . . . actually I'm kind of a home body and while the sunshine and warm temps of Florida sound fabulous (not to mention the mouse-freeness), I really wouldn't want to be away from my house that long . . . unless, of course, my house was infested with a mouse, or possibly mice, or possibly a rat . . . thanks to my mother for opening my brain to that line of thinking. It was just what I needed!

So, I'll keep you updated on the situation, but for now here is a photo of what $26.11 worth of mouse killer looks like: