Of Mice and Scrapbooking

So this weekend I went up to my parents' house to do some scrapbooking with my mom and a friend. And then I found myself on a mouse hunt.

Apparently my parents were unknowingly feeding all the neighborhood mice this winter with a bag of birdseed in their garage.  Which has since been removed, but removing all the mice is not so easy.  Especially when some of them manage to find their way into your connected house.

Their dog alerted them to the fact that they were in the house by consistently sniffing at the edge of the computer desk where there is a shelving unit that goes all the way to the floor.  My dad had a couple of traps at either end, but I figured, why not just pull the books out and see if we can catch them.  Mistake or adventure?

I stationed my parents at either end of the desk (my mother with a sieve in hand in case one came her way, my father with a shoe or some sort of blunt object - you can see the differences already!) and I started pulling out books.  With a flashlight I spotted one, oh wait, there are two, behind the last book box.  When I wiggled it one of them split around behind, but the other one just sat there.  So I showed my dad and he promptly squished it against the edge of the desk (you're welcome).

The other one then ran back and forth along the wall behind the desk as we attempted to get it any way possible.  When it started to climb the computer cords we shook them.  Then for some reason it ran out the front, in front of my mother, who had misplaced her "mouse catcher" and instead started shrieking.  Imagine the scary noise you make when you're pretending to be a ghost, that kind of undulating half wail, half moan thing.  Now imagine it on fast forward and consecutively getting higher pitched.  The mouse zig zagged in front of her and behind the filing cabinet on the other wall.  I attempted to catch it, but all I could really do was watch as I was paralyzed by laughter.  My dad and I were both doubled over laughing at my mother.  Sorry mom, it was pretty funny!

The mouse had gone under the filing cabinet and after pulling out the bottom drawer we evicted it... right back under the computer desk.  This time when it ran out the other end my dad missed it and we thought it went down the hall (where my baby was sleeping).  I started pulling things out of the hall closets and then thought to look behind the one bag in the entryway.  Mouse!  It ran into the corner and started trying to climb the wall!  I wasn't fast enough with my shoe as it ran along the edge and it got into the living room and under the couch.

So, we pulled out the couch and watched it run in and out.  As soon as any of us made a move it would disappear.  Dad pulled out the bed part of the couch, but there was really no way to trap it.  And then it was just gone.  Best we can figure it went up inside the couch somewhere.  You can rest easy knowing that we put out traps at either end of the couch and found one dead mouse in the morning.

At one point I thought about getting out the camera and videoing the hilarity, but didn't actually do it until the funniest part was over.  It's pretty funny to me to watch it, but somehow I don't think my mother would appreciate it being online...

After all that excitement I didn't get to bed early as I wanted to on Friday night and so my scrapbooking got off to a very slow start and combined with having a baby there I only got 11 pages done.  My friend Holly got 20 and she had to leave at noon on Sunday since it was snowing and she had to drive over the pass to get home.

Somewhere along the line my family members all picked up a lovely cold too and I have been a slack about mother today.  I napped when my children did and my face is so swollen and puffy that I can actually see my cheeks in my peripheral vision.  I have nothing against Asians, but I am not Asian and yet my eyes look like I am at the moment.  It's bad!

Here's to getting well quickly before we go on a road trip this weekend to visit grandparents and take 2 day long classes!

PS. I've entered a grant competition put on by Mom Central and the first part of it is a popularity contest.  The top 15 vote getters will then be judged by a panel from Mom Central.  I would really appreciate your vote to help me become a finalist.  You can vote here, once per day. (If that link doesn't work my entry is titled "Be a Mom Encourager")  Thanks friends!