Okay...this mouse is killing me. And I'm praying it's mouse and not mice.
I've always hated mice. I'm not really that scared of them because I know they can't actually hurt me. It's just the idea of a smelly, furry, rodent sneaking around my house, hiding in unexpected places that bothers me. I have been tortured by many a mouse in my day. Mentally tortured. To the point of sleeping with my head, arms, feet, completely under the covers, sweating, because I envisioned the mouse crawling across me at night. I'll never forget when I was young one winter, we had been finding mice in our house. I started fearing that a mouse would get in my bed while I slept. My parents assured me this couldn't happen. But, then a few days later I found mouse droppings on my windowsill, right by my bed. That's when I started sleeping completely under cover. And practically suffocating. I was so disturbed by the thought of the mouse crawling around my room that I wouldn't sit on my floor or place anything of importance on my floor because I knew a mouse had been crawling there. I even thought I could smell him. Seriously. This went on for awhile. You don't know how much sleep I lost. Maybe the disturbing thing was how horribly disturbed I was by the mice.
Well, I would like to say that now that I am an adult, I have grown up when it comes to mice. And I actually thought that I had. That is, until we got a visit from a mouse. Saturday morning, Carl spotted him racing across the carpet in our TV room. That's when my world came tumbling down. My nice, clean house...infested. Sure, our house isn't that clean. I'm sure our floors our covered in baby spit up and human waste (from babies) but it least it's our mess...not the mess of an univited guest. I spent Saturday watching every step I took fearing I might see the mouse.
I made it through the day okay, but night time was a different story. I know it's irrational, but I'm not the most rational person. I placed all nine of our throw pillows on top of our dresser, instead of the usual messy pile on the floor. And I'm not crazy. I failed to mention that after seeing the mouse on Saturday, I was putting fresh sheets on our bed. After getting the sheets on, I pulled the comforter back on...only to see a black speck attached to it. A speck which I am 99.9% sure was a mouse pellet. See, I just knew they crawl on me in my sleep. I had an awful time falling asleep at bedtime. I'm almost positive I heard the mouse rustling in our room. Then, when Keaton woke up in the middle of the night, I climbed out of bed and am almost certain I felt the mouse brush against my foot. I screamed and turned on the light and I'm pretty sure gave my husband one more reason to think I'm crazy.
So, tonight we stopped in Wal-Mart to get some ammunition for this problem. We stuck a sticky trap behind our fridge (when I say "we", I mean Carl...when it comes to mice I am completely hands-off) I had to work hard to convince Carl to buy sticky traps instead of the regular kind. His argument was that you have to keep buying more sticky traps because you only use them once. My argument was if he thinks I'm going to allow him to keep used and bloody mouse traps somewhere in my house, he's crazy.
So, we finally got the kids in bed and were sitting in the living room watching TV. Suddenly I heard the familiar rustling sound that I heard the night before. See I just knew it was a mouse last night. Then, we heard the squealing. Squealing and squealing, and more squealing. Very disturbing. The mouse was caught. I had wanted nothing more than for that mouse to die. But, I must say the squealing, suffering mouse made me feel a little bad. It probably wouldn't have been so bad except that Carl refused to do anything with it right then because it wasn't dead yet. He must not have understood how it was killing me inside to have a dying mouse behind our fridge. So gross. So, we watched the remainer of our show amidst the random rustling sound and moaning of a caught mouse, trying to free himself.
Seeing how we live in the country, I'm afraid I'm going to live a tortured life, if I don't get this issue of mine under control. Oh, and I failed to mention that I found mouse droppings in Keaton's book basket by his crib. Let's just say he didn't get a story tonight. Even my sweet little baby isn't safe.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
My goodness, it's been way too long. A lot has happened in the past month, much of which I can't even remember. Seems I'm remembering less and less these days and even my mass of sticky note reminders stuck in various, should-be obvious places, are being overlooked. I can't remember to look at my reminders. I blame it partly on starting school and being in a new position, of which I love by the way. I blame it more-than-partly on my eight-month old and nearing three-year old which have been draining every last brain cell that I have...and they are already few and far between. And lastly I guess I blame it on forgettful genes...my dad, not my mom. Life has been...busy and not allowing for much of anything extra.
Back to the kids. Cale has started Noah's Ark which has been an experience. Mostly a good experience, except that Cale has chosen this time in his life to become clingy and unsure of himself. So, many mornings have resulted in me prying him off of my legs as I quickly shut the door while he screams. Great way to start the day. (And it's not just at preschool. It's church, bedtime, naptime, etc.) But, he has been doing better the past week or so at Noah's Ark. Nothing that a little candy-bag-for-not-crying bribe each afternoon and having his best bud and cousin Kenzie ride with us to school, couldn't fix. It's shameful that I've resorted to bribing with candy, but I'll take shameful bribery over screaming and clinging any day. Each morning Kenzie and Cale walk in holding hands and stay that way for the first few minutes of being at school. It's pretty sweet.
Since my last post, Cale had a two-week long monster transformation. I don't mean monster as in "big", I mean he literally became a monster. He screamed and cried a constantly throughout the day, didn't want to go to school, woke up screaming and kicking several times a night, and just completely wasn't himself. I kept trying to get him to tell me what was wrong, but all I got was wailing. Finally we took him in to the doctor and found out he had a bad throat infection. After being on medicine for several days, his behavior did not get better. In fact, he got worse. I was beginning to think this was a phase he was in, and that disturbed me. Each day at school Cale's teachers were telling me that he cried a lot, refused to eat lunch (for about a week), and just wasn't himself. He was even sent home one day because he wouldn't stop crying. Finally he began telling us his teeth hurt. I looked inside his mouth and sure enough...it was the King-Kong of teeth...the two-year molars. I guess I thought those had already come in. I should've known better. There's not a tooth in that boys head that didn't come with pain and torture (yeah, I'm sure it hurt Cale, too) ;) So, we loaded him up on Tylenol and Ibuprofen for several days and he finally got past it, for the most part. He's still pretty clingy and almost impossible to get to sleep..."Lay with me...I want a drink...I'm scared...I think there's a tiger in my bedroom." One of my favorite excuses came about 11:00 one night. He woke up screaming and crying and when I finally calmed him down he said he wanted a drink. I told him no and he said, "...But I want milk. My bones are hurting and they are about to break". Back story...he hasn't been wanting to drink milk lately so I've been trying to coax him into drinking it by telling him how strong it makes his bones. So, what could I do but give him some milk. This boy is killing me.
Keaton is crawling all over the place now and pulling up on everything. He's been caught eating the toilet brush at least two times now. So that's where we are right now. I would move the brush, but there's just no good, handy place to put a nasty toilet brush and I feel like the best place is beside an equally nasty thing...the toilet. I just can't bring myself to put it on the counter or even on top of the toilet. I have issues about toilets and the tools we use to clean them, I guess. Keaton has also had ear infections for about a month and a half now. We have had four doctor visits and are now on our fourth different medicine. Next step will be a visit to the ENT, if his ears haven't cleared in about another week. Poor little guy has definitely been fussier than normal and not sleeping too well, but overall he's still a trooper.
Mr. Keaton has developed a temper in the last few weeks. He goes into a full-on screaming fit when things don't go his way. My sister said she read that at eight months you can start to really see a baby's personality. Up until then, you can't really tell. Darn it...he hit the eight month mark about 6 days ago. Hope there's not a correlation! But, in his defense his ears have been hurting for far too long now and he's cutting his second tooth. Those two things would be enough to make any of us have a temper, I suppose.
I can't believe how fast time is flying. It's almost October, Cale will be three in a few months and before long Keaton will be a year old. And I can barely keep up already. But, we are beginning my favorite time of year: Fall! So, I am going to try to slow down and enjoy it, one pumpkin at a time.
Back to the kids. Cale has started Noah's Ark which has been an experience. Mostly a good experience, except that Cale has chosen this time in his life to become clingy and unsure of himself. So, many mornings have resulted in me prying him off of my legs as I quickly shut the door while he screams. Great way to start the day. (And it's not just at preschool. It's church, bedtime, naptime, etc.) But, he has been doing better the past week or so at Noah's Ark. Nothing that a little candy-bag-for-not-crying bribe each afternoon and having his best bud and cousin Kenzie ride with us to school, couldn't fix. It's shameful that I've resorted to bribing with candy, but I'll take shameful bribery over screaming and clinging any day. Each morning Kenzie and Cale walk in holding hands and stay that way for the first few minutes of being at school. It's pretty sweet.
Since my last post, Cale had a two-week long monster transformation. I don't mean monster as in "big", I mean he literally became a monster. He screamed and cried a constantly throughout the day, didn't want to go to school, woke up screaming and kicking several times a night, and just completely wasn't himself. I kept trying to get him to tell me what was wrong, but all I got was wailing. Finally we took him in to the doctor and found out he had a bad throat infection. After being on medicine for several days, his behavior did not get better. In fact, he got worse. I was beginning to think this was a phase he was in, and that disturbed me. Each day at school Cale's teachers were telling me that he cried a lot, refused to eat lunch (for about a week), and just wasn't himself. He was even sent home one day because he wouldn't stop crying. Finally he began telling us his teeth hurt. I looked inside his mouth and sure enough...it was the King-Kong of teeth...the two-year molars. I guess I thought those had already come in. I should've known better. There's not a tooth in that boys head that didn't come with pain and torture (yeah, I'm sure it hurt Cale, too) ;) So, we loaded him up on Tylenol and Ibuprofen for several days and he finally got past it, for the most part. He's still pretty clingy and almost impossible to get to sleep..."Lay with me...I want a drink...I'm scared...I think there's a tiger in my bedroom." One of my favorite excuses came about 11:00 one night. He woke up screaming and crying and when I finally calmed him down he said he wanted a drink. I told him no and he said, "...But I want milk. My bones are hurting and they are about to break". Back story...he hasn't been wanting to drink milk lately so I've been trying to coax him into drinking it by telling him how strong it makes his bones. So, what could I do but give him some milk. This boy is killing me.
Keaton is crawling all over the place now and pulling up on everything. He's been caught eating the toilet brush at least two times now. So that's where we are right now. I would move the brush, but there's just no good, handy place to put a nasty toilet brush and I feel like the best place is beside an equally nasty thing...the toilet. I just can't bring myself to put it on the counter or even on top of the toilet. I have issues about toilets and the tools we use to clean them, I guess. Keaton has also had ear infections for about a month and a half now. We have had four doctor visits and are now on our fourth different medicine. Next step will be a visit to the ENT, if his ears haven't cleared in about another week. Poor little guy has definitely been fussier than normal and not sleeping too well, but overall he's still a trooper.
Mr. Keaton has developed a temper in the last few weeks. He goes into a full-on screaming fit when things don't go his way. My sister said she read that at eight months you can start to really see a baby's personality. Up until then, you can't really tell. Darn it...he hit the eight month mark about 6 days ago. Hope there's not a correlation! But, in his defense his ears have been hurting for far too long now and he's cutting his second tooth. Those two things would be enough to make any of us have a temper, I suppose.
I can't believe how fast time is flying. It's almost October, Cale will be three in a few months and before long Keaton will be a year old. And I can barely keep up already. But, we are beginning my favorite time of year: Fall! So, I am going to try to slow down and enjoy it, one pumpkin at a time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
