It’s Thursday once again, and that means another batch of photos from the Hawaii Boisverts. This time, not only did I get them all posted on Thursday, but I think I even got the right captions with the right photos.
Monthly Archive for December, 2004
My god she makes me smile.
I was feeding Lindsay this morning, and talking to her as I usually do while she quietly looks into my eyes and listens, when I suddenly yawned a huge, gaping yawn. Lindsay promptly stopped her sucking, this twinkle came into her eyes, and she looked completely conflicted on whether to keep eating, or respond. I started laughing as she let go and began a series of her best yawns yet, interspersed with near-reattachment before popping back off to yawn again, followed by adorable grins. It’s as though she wanted me to know she had made the connection, and that she too, could do that trick.
This may be a little confusing for those of you who have never been to our house, but I will explain as best I can.
In the downstairs family room, there is a section of ceiling by the window that slants down from the rest of the ceiling, ending in a corner that hangs over the couch. When we moved in, we noticed right away that the previous owner had done a lot of work fixing plumbing problems and such because there is a rust stain where water dripped from the upstairs bathroom and corroded the metal corner of that weird overhanging ceiling thing. Also, there is a hole cut out of the ceiling of the closet in the adjacent bedroom so they could have access to all of those pipes that were obviously leaking once upon a time.
Anyway, for the past few months, every few days, when I’d go in and sit on the couch in the morning to feed Lindsay, there’d be this water mark on the top of the couch cushion, right below where the rust stains were. At first I was upset because I thought the pipes were leaking again, and that we were going to have to rip out the weird overhang thing. Well, I felt the rust stain every time, and all along above the couch, but could never feel any evidence of water whatsoever. I was quite perplexed for some time until this morning.
I saw that the water mark was now on one of the new pillows I bought a couple weeks ago…slightly in front of the normal water spot. Perplexed once again, I pointed it out to Barney as he left for work. We both shrugged it off again until I finally used my brain and smelled the water spot. Right away I grabbed Lindsay and ran up the stairs to catch Barney before he left.
Dear God. I’m no longer perplexed. I’m now revolted.
It’s mouse pee. Yes, a rodent has been pissing on our couch for several months, and I’ve just been letting it dry on there thinking it was water. How does our family room not smell? I have no clue. But what I smelled was definitely mouse pee! I’m not afraid of mice or anything, but I shudder as I think about the fact that there may be a mouse living in my couch, running around under my butt as I watch t.v.!
When I thought about the fact that it’s probably coming in from the attic, through the hole in the ceiling of the closet in Lindsay’s bedroom, I cringe and think of terrible things like…what if the few times Lindsay has woken up and cried for a few seconds in the middle of the night, it was because some mouse ran over her face and interrupted her sleep! AHHHHHHHHHHH! Call the exterminator! But then the mother in me kicks in and thinks, but what if I kill it, and it has poor little mouse babies waiting for it and they all end up dying a slow, horrible, painful death waiting for their mommy to return. I’m insane. I know this.
So I now have to do what I have never wanted to do, and probably go buy some mouse traps. I don’t know if there are live traps for such small critters, but I’m afraid that even if there are, and I caught and released the thing, it’d just come right back. I think we’re going to have to kill it. So sad. But I really don’t want some mouse peeing on my couch, or worse, finding its way up to the kitchen, running around on our counters, and inviting all of his little micey friends over to our house to party.
Bye bye little Mouse.