- Notice mouse droppings in the pantry of the old farmhouse you’ve just moved into.
- Convince yourself that it’s probably not recent because no one has lived here for a while.
- Accidentally drop a large piece of pizza between the fridge and stove.
- Forget to clean it up.
- Ask husband if he cleaned up the pizza the next morning when you notice that it is gone.
- Conclude that you definitely have a mouse in the house.
- Freak out.
- Ask friends what they recommend for traps.
- Buy traps.
- Place one glue trap between the fridge and stove to catch the mouse on its path from the pantry to the counters.
- Wait. Overnight, if possible.
- Avoid looking at the area the next morning when you wake up.
- When children insist the trap is moving, call husband out of bed to dispose of mouse and trap.
- Breathe a sigh of relief and continue to enjoy your new home.
- Forget about mice for months.
- While using the step stool to put away spare sheets in the hall closet, decide to finally clean up all the accumulated plastic bags on the floor of the pantry so you can return the step stool to its rightful place.
- Notice mouse droppings.
- Convince yourself that those are leftover mouse droppings from the last mouse because you aren’t a terribly thorough cleaner and you can’t remember how well you cleaned the pantry anyway.
- Collect plastic bags to take to recycling.
- Jump and scream when you move plastic bags and a little mouse scurries across the pantry and disappears into the wall.
- Run to the bedroom and jump on the bed where your 4-year-old retreated when he heard you scream.
- Take deep breaths.
- Convince yourself you can finish the clean-up job without screaming.
- Don gloves and gingerly pick up plastic bags until you can see the floor again.
- Move glue trap to the spot where you saw the mouse disappear.
- Recycle plastic bags at the grocery store.
- Tell husband about the mouse.
- Forget mice exist.
- Get on with life.
- On an unsuspecting day when you’re sitting at the computer and the children are running through the house, scream as you see a grey blob scurrying across the kitchen floor right toward you.
- Freeze.
- Run into the bedroom and jump on the bed with the kids while hubby is getting ready for work.
- Point and shriek when you see the rodent peeking out from behind a chair in the bedroom.
- Watch in horror and awe as your husband tries to trap the mouse in the hall closet.
- Scream again when the mouse escapes into the kids’ bedroom.
- Wonder out loud if maybe it’s time to move again.
- Take husband to work.
- Eat lunch when you get home.
- Let kids play outside so you can wash the dishes that piled up from the day before when you were sick.
- Remove from the kitchen the cardboard boxes for recycling and boxes of donations to take to Goodwill.
- Go back outside and play (which actually means ignoring the mouse problem.)
- Decide to walk to the park and back, which will kill about 2 hours of your day.
- Have fun at the park.
- Invent errands to run when you get home from the park.
- Go shopping at Target for water bottles and the grocery store for canned pizza dough because you wanted to make homemade dough but the kids wouldn’t leave your side.
- Attempt to roll out canned pizza dough.
- Curse and yell at the pizza dough that will not stretch correctly.
- Decide to go out for dinner.
- Eat at CiCi’s pizza.
- Go to another park.
- Return home for the fastest bath times in human history.
- Go to Chick-fil-a early for indoor play time before hubby gets off work.
- Tell hubby about your terrible horrible no good very bad day that also had some good points.
- Let the 6-year-old girl call her grandpa to talk about why she’s scared of the mouse.
- Sing children to sleep.
- Wear slippers to bed.
- Go to church the next morning because it’s Sunday and it’s the best place to be.
- Talk about your mouse problem and how it’s scaring the children (just the children, of course).
- Come home from church refreshed.
- Eat lunch.
- Enjoy family nap time.
- Pretend the mouse has vanished.
- See mouse scamper through the kitchen the next morning while everyone else is sleeping.
- Wake sleeping husband and convince him to put traps on the path.
- Send your daughter to school the next day with hope that the mouse will be gone by the time she’s home.
- Send hubby and son to Lowe’s for manly purchases.
- Clean parts of kitchen with fear and trepidation while they are gone.
- Convince yourself mouse is nothing to be afraid of.
- Let husband and son back in the house as husband points out the mouse scurrying across the kitchen.
- Leap onto the bench at the counter/peninsula while husband resumes attempt to catch the mouse.
- Watch him squeeze himself into the pantry while trying to trap the mouse.
- Sigh with dread as mouse disappears. Again.
- Spend the rest of the day battling big emotions and crying.
- Lie down for a few minutes before picking the girl up from the bus.
- Work together as a family to cook a delicious dinner.
- Put the kids to bed.
- Bait a trap with peanut butter.
- Discover mouse droppings in a place that makes you want to puke.
- Watch Doctor Who to take your mind off things.
- Hear sounds from the kitchen.
- Send husband to investigate.
- Breathe easier when he tells you he has caught and disposed of a mouse.
- Sleep soundly that night, without slippers on.
- Tell kids the good news the next morning.
- Put daughter on the bus.
- See mouse scurrying through the kitchen as you and son prepare to leave for playdate.
- Tell husband to bait another trap, even if it means the mouse will be your problem later in the day while he’s at work.
- Hear sounds in kitchen before you and son leave.
- Tell hubby that mouse may already be caught.
- Leave for playdate and enjoy time outside of the house.
- Return from playdate to learn that second mouse has been caught and disposed of.
- Spend next two days tiptoeing around your house, jumping at slight movements and shadows, ears alert to any kind of noise, unconvinced that mouse problem is over.
- Tell Facebook friends you need prayer because you are going crazy over this.
- Get on with kitchen/laundry chores because it can’t wait.
- Report mouse problem to landlord.
- Wait for landlord’s call.
- Consider getting a cat against landlord’s policy.
- Write longest how-to list on the face of the earth.
- Leave readers hanging in suspense because you really don’t know how this is all going to turn out.
Archives for March 2014
5 on Friday: Happy things
It’s been a week battling fear and anxiety over mice in our house mixed with overall glum because it snowed–snowed!–after the official start of spring.
But that doesn’t mean it’s been all bad. I need the reminder, myself, that there is a lot of good about life.
Here are five happy things about the past few weeks.
1. Our daughter turned 6 and is reading books on her own. As book lovers, my husband and I couldn’t be more proud of this development. Also, she discovered a girls’ devotional on our bookshelves, something we picked up years ago at a book sale for “someday.” Well, someday is here. It’s aimed at ages 6 to 10, so I promised her we could start near her birthday. We’ve been reading one of the passages each night (most nights) and it makes me happy that she wants to read it and the passages from the Bible. It’s also given us some practical ways to incorporate our faith into action.
2. 60-degree-Saturdays in the park. Last weekend we had the most beautiful day of the year. The kids and I walked to the park where we saw flowers blooming and ducks swimming and felt the sunshine on our faces. It was a glorious reminder of what I wait for all winter. The chance to be outside, walk and experience nature. I’m hoping we can do this once a week, if the weather cooperates.
3. Silent Sunday. Our church last week had a service I’ve never before experienced. It wasn’t completely silent, but we spent much of the time personally reflecting on Scripture and with a variety of prompts at tables in the fellowship hall. It was a time to cut out distractions and let God speak. And as much as I like music and hearing teaching, I crave time to sit with things and consider and allow God a voice. That’s hard with two kids and a busy life, so I’m grateful for the chance to do something different at church and make space for this.
4. Cooking together. I was sick again late last week. A spring cold, I guess, on the heels of a late-winter sinus thing. I had a week in-between where I felt healthy. When that happens, I tend to give up meal planning and become stumped about what to fix for dinner. A couple of nights last weekend my husband was home and available to cook. He’s a master at taking our leftovers or random ingredients and creating something delicious. One night, the four of us were all in the kitchen together helping put dinner together. Sometimes I like to be alone with the cooking process, especially after a long day of keeping up with the kids. But that night, it was a joy to all be working together.
5. Songs on repeat. I’m not normally a fan of listening to the same songs or CDs repeatedly, but ever since we took our kids to a Jason Gray concert at the beginning of the month, they’ve been wanting to listen to his new album in the car every time we’re in the car. We’ve listened to the songs so much they’ve started singing along to most of them, not just their two favorite ones. (This is one of them.) It makes me smile to hear them sing about truths and experiences they don’t know much about yet, and it reminds me that having faith like a child is not complicated, even though we want to make it that way.