In my heart, I knew right away what had caused that damage. But, I held onto the belief that maybe, maybe, Ed had started to open the bag, punctured it with his thumb (though it was a ziploc bag), decided to go somewhere else, dropped the bag of ingredients on the floor, and then watched them pour out onto the floor without cleaning them up, before forgetting about them. A few months ago, this might have been a reasonable hope, but really it's not these days.
I waited for Ed to awaken, and then I asked him if he happened to spill some beer-making ingredients the night before and forget to vacuum them up. He stared at me blankly and I headed for the hall closet to procure the vacuum. I then went downstairs and cleaned it up while Ed assured me that there was no way possible he had done that, and we must have a mouse. Or mice. But let's go with "a mouse" for now, because that sounds a lot less horrible.
Now is probably a good time to point out that I live in an old house, with LOTS of nooks and crannies, and really, many mice could live down there and I'd never know, so long as they didn't disturb my laundry.
After I had vacuumed up the small pile of grain, Ed and Connor dutifully set a trap. They opted for a catch and release trap, which in theory might seem humane, but the last time this trap was used, the mouse it caught ended up dying in the trap before Ed discovered it was there. Bet that cagey mouse is sorry he didn't just run in the trap on days 1 through 5 when Ed and Connor checked it regularly. But that was a long time ago, and Ed promised it wouldn't happen again.
Sunday morning, I slept in. And when I say "slept in", I mean I REALLY SLEPT IN. I slept past 8:30, which is freaking unbelievable. The kids were up at 7:00, and normally this would mean I would be up, but rather than coming in to "lay with me" which is code for "pretend Mommy is a jungle gym and climb all over her" until I get out of bed" the kids were totally occupied with Ed. You see, on their very first night, they had caught the mouse. And yes, as of this writing, I'm holding onto "the" as the modifier, because I am totally willing to believe that this mouse traveled alone. He seemed stealthy like that.
If I had my druthers, they would've excorted the mouse to its new home before I woke up, but both children very much wanted to show me their booty. I only jumped a little when Helen came at me with the jar.
For its very brief stay in our house, that mouse was loved, though I suspect it wasn't all that thrilled with its lot in life. A good old fashioned public shaming was probably not what it was planning to do when it went into Connor and Ed's very cleverly placed trap baited with peanut butter. I guess that mouse didn't know that in MY house, you don't leave crumbs all over after you have a midnight snack and expect to get away with it.
It was hard to get Helen to give up the mouse when it was Connor's turn to hold the jar.
But eventually she did, and Ed headed off to the meadow with the kids while I took a shower. Alone. With no children interrupting me. Now that's what a call a good Sunday morning! Although the price of having to have a mouse in my house may be a little steeper than I'm willing to pay in the future.
When they got to the meadow, Connor used his height to his advantage to hold the mouse a little bit longer.
Then, Helen and Connor set the mouse free.
No mouse was found in the trap this morning, and I'm hoping that trend continues. Importantly, I have also not found any mouse dropping or any other sign that mice inhabit my home.
Elaine
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