But after my run and such an early morning I was tired. Really tired. And in case you didn't know, tired mom + tired kids = long day. We plugged along until we hit the brutal hour of 4:00 pm.
Emma was getting ready for a "tea party". She invited her friends from across the street to come over and decided they should all be "fancy". She came out in this outfit and I thought she looked just darling and had her pose by the front door.
Hunter was in the middle of a temper tantrum about (you guessed it) wanting some ice in his drink. But now we were out of ice. We used the last of it to shut him up earlier. I was pretending to ignore his screams and busy myself with cleaning up the mess we made in the dining room at lunch: edamame and quesadillas.
As I reached down to pick up a handful of fallen edamame shells I almost stepped on a small creature. For a spit second I thought, "Oh my gosh that is the biggest cockroach I've ever seen in my life!" But then I saw it's face and it's tail. It was a mouse. A teeny, teeny, tiny mouse, well, about the size of a large cockroach.
I screamed at the top of my lungs. Ran into the kitchen, then started hysterically laughing at myself for the way I reacted. Now Hunter was curious and confused and quiet (yes!). I decided I wanted to find the mouse. Where did it go? Were there others?
I climbed on top of our dining room table to survey the ground below. Hunter followed me to the king's chair (that's what we call the head of the table). I looked and looked for a couple of minutes with no luck. Then, all of a sudden Hunter calmly said, "He likes it." I followed his gaze to find that little teeny, tiny mouse right in my blind spot, not far from where I almost stepped on him. He was eating one of the fallen edamame shells. And Hunter was right. He liked it.
When I got a closer look, I saw that this little guy was actually kind of cute just munching away on that salty, green shell. The Rescuers and Stuart Little flashed through my mind. I called in Emma and we all got down to get a closer look. The mouse nibbled away and we decided that this little baby mouse was so new that he didn't know to be afraid of humans and run away. I decided that he was so tame I could probably catch him...the last thing I wanted was to leave him there and and by the looks of it, he wasn't going anywhere on his own.
I ran to my closet, grabbed an empty shoebox and ran back to the dining room. That little guy was still in the same spot! I warned the kids to get out of my way and threw the box on top of the mouse and scooped him up with the lid.
I CAUGHT A MOUSE! Here he is:
The kids were entertained for the last stretch before Tommy came home. Just watching, NOT TOUCHING the mouse.
Emma thought the mouse might like some cheese.
He did.
Right here's when they asked,
"Can we keep it, Mom?"
No. I told them Tommy would take the mouse to work tomorrow so he could find his mother in the desert. I was pretty sure it was a desert mouse. Luckily, Emma agreed with me and convinced her brother that the mouse should not be separated from it's mother.
Until the next adventure...
