Late Night Visitor

One of the perks of vacation is NAPS...or as I call them "nappies." Sunday afternoon we all took nappies and coincidentally were up LATE that night. Midnight came and went and all of us were watching TV in the living room. The boys asked for a snack, so I went rummaging through the pantry. The only light on in the house was the light above the stove. As I turned away from the pantry to walk across the kitchen I saw something move quite quickly below my sink. Luckily the stove light was shining right where I needed it.

I called out, "Luuuuuke...there is a mouse in our kiiiiitchen and you need to come get it nooooooowwwwww." I was frozen.

The boys hop up from the couch and being the fine pansies I have raised them to be, started whimpering. Luke grabs a gift box (thanks Uncle Bobby) and an oven mitt and tries to stop the mouse before he runs back behind the refrigerator. He is successful on his first try.

He gets the mouse into the box and we flip on the lights to see what we caught

We have never caught anything like this before in our house. I was freaking out.

Luke tries to get the boys to come closer and says, "Its just a baby field mouse. Come look."

The boys come closer but are not impressed. Luke gets the mouse some cheese and we throw in some donut crumbs to spoil the little fella. He doesn't seem interested...and then Luke suggests we keep him overnight.

Not a good idea is what I am thinking. The boys seem to agree.

Luke throws in some pieces of paper towel and thinks the mouse needs a bed. I think its funny and tell him the mouse will eat the paper towel. The mouse then begins to freak out, throwing himself up against the sides of the box to get out. After a minute or so he stops.

Bubba begins worrying in his usual "Bubba fashion" and decided that the house needs to go home to his own family.

Luke agrees and we take the mouse out the front yard.

Luke dumps out the remains of the box on to the lawn. The boys run back into the house because its freezing. Luke and I wait to see if its going to take off. It moves about a foot and stops. We get a little closer and he appears to be dead. Luke tries to move it with his shoe to see if its alive---and it doesn't move.

We come to the conclusion that the smart little mouse is playing dead and call it a night. Hopefully no cats will pounce before he takes off.

Monday morning.....Luke finds our late night visitor in the same spot we left him. Apparently the mouse was not playing. I told Luke I wanted to take a picture and he got annoyed with me. So..if you were hoping for an "after" picture you are out of luck. But I tried.

No--the boys don't know the mouse died. Luke threw our visitor into the trash can before the boys went searching for him in the morning.

On an up note, this visitor has been a good incentive for the boys to keep the garage door and back doors shut when they come in and out of the house!!