There's A Mouse In the House!

So yesterday was a beautiful day. Temps in the 50's. Kids played outside, I cleaned out the car. I even opened up the windows in the house and opened up the sunroom!

After we got inside from playing, as I was walking down the hall, I saw this small "something" on the floor and dismissed it as a big leaf that one of the kids dragged in. My hands were full of laundry so I just walked past it. A few minutes later I was fixing dinner and noticed it in the kitchen. Rachael said, "What is that?" I said, "Oh it's just a leaf" and reached down and picked it up. It was not a leaf. It was a dead baby mouse. One of the cats must have found it in the sun room and dragged it in the house.

Now, typically I would have not freaked out. A few years ago, yes. But over the past few years I've had many animals to take care of, watched my hamster give birth and helped with baby hamsters (this mouse was about the size of a newborn hamster) and of course have given birth...twice. Not much scares me anymore. Anyway, I'm used to animals, so normally I would have just scooped it up (although probably not with my bare hands!) and thrown it out. But I totally freaked out! I think when you expect a leaf and it's this cold, damp, critter....I don't know. It was just funny ( looking back on it). Rachael sure thought it was funny. Teased me about it all night.

Of course then I had to wonder...where did it come from (although I'm sure it was the sunroom, there are boxes out there, etc) and are there more? If there are more I'm sure we will find them once the weather warms up and the sun room stays open most of the time.

In the meantime, the house is closed back up. We got a cold front through last night and the windchill is -5 right now. We are expecting 1-2 inches of snow, which would be fine except they are calling for "blizzard-like winds" and "snow drifts". It's days like this I hate to send Rae to school (although I did) because I hate the thought of what it will be like when school gets out!