Of mice and men

It has been fairly entertaining lately listening to my nieghbor's mice woes. They have had 4 (yes, four!) mice caught in traps. Eeeeewwwwww! It was nice knowing as she spoke that our mice woes were in the past. . . or so we thought.

Trent's parents are in town. We have had a fun, long day. Trent and I were both watching TV and on our computers and they were dozing, but pretending not to be. They finally decided to call it a night. They said goodnight and headed up the stairs to our guest room. Not 3 minutes passed and they were both back downstairs.

Nana said, "I think there is a mouse in our room! We can hear it scratching." We all ran upstairs and we could all hear it. We weren't sure if it was behind the bed, in the nightstand or in the wall. After placing towels over all the appropriate doorways, we ventured to look and quickly realized that the mouse was in the wall. Trent banged loudly on the wall (I asked him what good that was gonna do and I got the "you're not helping" look).

Trent headed up into the attic for a closer look. He yelled down to ask if we could still hear it. We could. But all the yelling back and forth woke Julianne up. She asked what was going on. I told her we could hear a mouse, but it was not a big deal and she should go back to sleep.

A few moments later, Julianne called out "Mom" again. I ran in there quickly (so she would not wake everyone). Julianne was sitting up, wide eyed and said, "Mom, you can use Serafina if you need to and she handed me her stuffed plush webkinz cat (whose name is Serafina, (named for the cat in the Barbie movie "The Princess and the Pauper"). She was serious!

We read out loud to our children each night. For several years we have been working our way through the Little house Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We are currently in book 7, "Little Town on the Prairie" In one of the most recent chapters, the Ingalls family is plagued by mice so severely, that the mice are eating the family's hair during the night. They are so grateful when another local homesteader's cat has a litter of kittens and they are able to get one. The chapter title is, "The necessary cat."

Apparently, Serafina, is our necessary cat. We took her up in the attic (where I got yet another "you're not helping" look). She did not find it. We came out of the attic and Julianne set Serafina guard in their room so that if in the middle of the night, the mouse found a way in, Serafina would get it. She told Nana that she could cuddle with Serafina so she wouldn't be scared. Nana replied that if the mouse got in her room, she was coming to Julianne's bed to sleep with her.

Meanwhile, we are brainstorming ways to get the mouse out, and I am blogging about it. (every time Trent hears the typing, I get another "You're not helping" look. So I guess I better stop. Hopefully we all sleep well.

(scratch, scratch)

(squeek)

(scratch, scratch)