Mousecapades

This picture makes me sick. This is pretty much what the mouse in my living room looked like on Wednesday afternoon, only it was scurrying at the time (from the kitchen where Grant was sitting in his high chair to the far corner of the living room). I screamed so loudly that my throat hurt for hours, and then I had to race into the kitchen to reassure Grant (while standing on a chair, of course). I'm not the bravest person when it comes to mice.

Sunday or Monday I woke up in the middle of the night and heard what sounded like a rodent chewing on cardboard, coming either from the closet or perhaps the attic above it. I don't know how I got back to sleep, but eventually I did. I didn't think much more about it until Wednesday morning when I saw a news segment on mice and how they never come alone. That afternoon I saw the mouse with my own eyes. I couldn't wait around for Jake to get home, so I grabbed Grant and we walked to the park.

Of course, every place seems to be sold out of traps, but Jake found two and put them in our living room. I've done okay as long as Jake is around (I suppose because I think he can do something if we see it again), but as soon as he would leave for work at 6:30 a.m. I would bring Grant in on my bed and wouldn't let him off until it was light outside (by the way, two years can be torture for you and for your baby in that situation, but he did pretty well). I know, I'm crazy. I've worn shoes or slippers everywhere in the house, even though I'm usually a barefoot fan--I think this fear stems from when a mouse ran over my bare foot near my bedroom growing up. I'm still scarred. I spent Thursday and Friday away from the house as much as possible until Jake came home, but we never had luck catching anything.

I feel so invaded! Why is it that this tiny thing brings so much fear? The greatest reason is that I'm now not only nauseated by the idea of having a mouse in my home, but I'm also scared that Grant will find a trap, or that he will somehow get into mouse droppings and get sick.

Yesterday I tried to find more traps, but every blasted place seems to be sold out of the cheap, classic wood one. So I paid much more than I wanted to, and hoped beyond hope that it would work. We set more traps last night and put both peanut butter and cheese on them, and within an hour we heard the click (no, not a loud snap). YES!!! We got one! Jake thought it was inhumane to let it slowly die in the enclosed trap, but we didn't know what to do. So we just chucked the whole thing in our garbage bin outside so we wouldn't have to hear it. All $4 of trap. Sigh. But I wasn't about to clean it out, and $4 is a small price for a little more sanity!!

Now to deal with the fear from the stupid news bite about how they never come alone....