A few weeks ago, we noticed some mouse droppings. Then we found more and more. We immediately went to the store to look for some sort of trap. The only thing they sold at the store were the sticky sheets. After a few days, it was obvious that the traps weren’t working. We were still finding droppings, and one day I saw a little mouse running across the floor, right by where we had put one of our "traps".
The next plan was to get regular old mouse traps. The problem was finding a place to put the traps was difficult when we consider the curiousity of the kids. We certainly didn't want to put the traps somewhere the kids could grab it (duh).
Plan "C" was to get a cat. Great idea, right? Ben wasn't all the way thrilled with this plan, but I thought it would be fun to have a pet. You see, I have never had a warm blooded pet, and thought it would be fabulous for the boys. One day last week I got a call from Ben saying that his boss was willing to let us borrow her fabulous "mouser" cat. It really was a perfect solution to several of our issues. First, we could get rid of the mouse (or mice) that have made our house their home. Second, we could do a test run of having a cat so we could see if we really wanted one as a pet. Win-win.
Saturday afternoon we bought all of the necessary supplies, and that night, we had a cat. The boys were thrilled. The cat-not as thrilled. We didn't see much of her after our initial meeting. She hid most of the time, and didn't come out except at night, when she would "sing" to us and climb into our bed at three in the morning. It wasn't going as expected, but it was still fun to have an animal in the house.
Today, I left the kids with Lupe, and when I came home an hour later, one of the doors that leads to the outside was wide open. I closed the door and started searching for the inside-only cat. She was not in any of her usual hiding places, she wasn't anywhere inside. I called Ben. This was tragic. The cat was missing. He rushed home and helped me look. We went around the neighborhood, searched high and low. The cat was nowhere to be found. Ben decided to go back to work and let his boss know what had happened. We lost her cat. Can you imagine? The shame. The grief. I felt so badly, I didn't have the words.
There was one last hope. Ben's boss decided to come over, and if the cat was hiding in the house (by some miracle), maybe her voice would bring the cat out. Again, it was a good thirty minutes that we were searching inside. We were about to go outside when Ben wanted to try one last place, a storage room with empty electronic boxes. A room that Ben and I had searched earlier in the day. This time, we moved the boxes around, and guess what? The cat jumped out. I almost cried I was so relieved. I thought it was a hopeless tale of misery and woe.
Tomorrow we are on a search for mouse traps. We will have to figure out where to put them so that the kids can't get to them, either that, or we are going to have another kind of warm blooded pet. I don't think we are ready for a cat. Although, as soon as the cat left with her loving owner, Jack asked when he was going to get a dog.
Not anytime soon. I promise that. I'm not ready for that sort of pressure.
