Boy, was it an exciting month. A month filled with a slashed tire that was done by a five year old, a possessed Christmas tree, and a mouse. It was definitely a December to remember! Let's start with the our new house guest, the mouse...
When you have a new baby, it causes everyone to have to adjust to the noises, cries, and coos - even the dog. We all sleep upstairs (except Ozzy, the dog) and since moving Brooklyn into her crib in her room, we've started using the monitor. Mainly, we use it when we put her to sleep and we are still downstairs. Sometimes, we forget to turn it off, which means Ozzy is interrupted from his slumber when she gets up for the midnight feedings. Early in December though, it was HIM that started interrupting our slumber with whines and uneasy noises.
At first we thought it was just from leaving the monitor on and he was hearing the baby, and then we thought, well - maybe he needs to go the bathroom? Maybe, we forgot to feed him (don't judge, we are busy and just hope to remember to feed the kids). However, nothing seemed to be working. This went on for days, but nothing we were trying was calming him down. It was like clockwork, every night for about three nights at about 11pm each night. Then one day, I was emptying the bag of recyclables in the pantry and found the evidence left by our new house guest.
It was on the floor and four shelves up, hundreds of little brown rice size mouse poops. It was everywhere. Now, I got the fun task of cleaning, organizing and disinfecting my pantry. I threw away so much! This little organizing and cleaning task would have been much more fun when I was still pregnant.
I took it upon myself to clean and organize, but when it came to the little unwanted house guest, I would leave the mighty hunter (my husband, Steve) to evicting him. He picked up a trap that night on his way home and set it with a dab of peanut butter on it. Now, the waiting began.
Just as we settled into bed his phone beeped. He was getting called into work and I was going to be left in the house alone...with a mouse. I was awake at every little sound. The dog would stir in his kennel, the heat would click on, and I was wide awake thinking about a mouse in my pantry. Steve still hadn't gotten back from work when I got up to feed the baby at around 2:30am. Just as I was finishing, I heard a loud SNAP! Agh! It was the mouse, he got the peanut butter! Ewww... Now, I had to worry about getting up with Marley in a few more hours with a dead mouse in my kitchen. Wait though, was it really dead?! What if it wasn't? What if I went down there and opened the door and it was running around only half dead with the trap hanging off it?! What if it was dead and there was blood all over?! Why couldn't Steve be home to deal with this?
I laid back in bed and stared at the 3:30am red letters on my clock and did my best to fall back to sleep for a little while longer. Just as my alarm began going off at 7:45, I heard a wonderful sound! I heard a key unlocking the front door... Steve, my mighty hunter was home alas! I filled him in on the nights events and the loud snap I heard. He went down to investigate the pantry. Sure enough, the mouse had entered the trap for his peanut butter treat, only to have the trap smash him and quickly bring him (bloodless) to his death. He didn't run around, his body wasn't hanging out, in fact - without looking inside the trap, you couldn't even see it.
That was that. Usually these little pooping buggers have friends or family, but in this case, he was a lonely little mouse that was enjoying our pantry of goodness all to himself. We reset the trap for weeks after, but nothing. No more unwanted house guests and no more evidence of poop.
December was only beginning though... I had no idea a five year old could slash a tire.
