Maybe two weeks ago I found evidence of mice in my garage. I have food in storage out there, mostly tins and jars, but there was a bag with chocolate and crisps... The food supply was removed, the place was scrubbed, but we didn’t act in terms of setting traps.
A few days ago I heard something in the living room, scratching, in the walls or under the floor. I didn’t connect the dots to the garage. Last night some flickering in the corner of my eye was confirmed as a mouse in the living room. We tidied up the toys, did a thorough hoover, moved the sofa to have better access to the area we thought it was in. Of course I told Isabella, and she was delighted to tell her nana and grandad that it was a mystery and we were trying to catch the mouse. She later comes out with “mammy I saw the mouse”, a little bit excited but mostly just interested in this now matter-of-fact addition to our household. No fear. So my primary objective is to ensure I’m not jittery around the mouse. This may be difficult, however my effort in this regard is great.
She had indeed spotted the mouse*. It had been holed-up in the one bit of furniture we didn’t move during the aforementioned thorough hoovering. And now it was back in the fireplace, where we had seen it last night. It emerged again while Isabella was there and there were no jitters. We waited until she was in bed to put down the traps; two humane and four not. Two humane traps with chocolate in the fireplace, the four snappers with pre-baited tummies-mouse-scent to the right where the mouse had darted back and forth last night.
Mouse appears. Goes left! Then back to the fireplace. We move a trap to the left, a while later the mouse appears, goes left and...jumps over the feckin trap!! Hilariously not remotely funny. Today involved purchasing more traps, removing more toys and furniture from the living room so we can see it all more clearly and trace the evidence, if and when it appears again. I also found some droppings in the kitchen, so that was pretty grim. The scrubbing and removal of loose foods and removal of as much clutter as possible goes on and on and on. But, we are getting there.
Today’s conversations were about how we like the mice, but we don’t like when he poos on our floor (or on our toys) and we want him to find his own house and not live in ours. So, mini-me is on board with that, and happy to continue trying to solve the mystery.
* I stuck a star in above to remind me to loop back to this point - do you ever notice that sometimes adults make assumptions (with 100% fixed belief) that children lie? Whether it be intentionally (eg to get what they want, to blame someone else, to cause trouble) or unintentionally (a flight of fancy, an obvious misunderstanding, a lack of capacity to really know, clearly unbelievable because of the adults’ fixed mindset). Well, I have noticed this. And, I have learned through having children, that children are not born with the understanding of what a lie is, how to do it, what it is for, etc. We teach them. And how we teach them, is either by example (bad adults, shame, shame) or by buying-in to one or more of the multiple, and seemingly culturally accepted beliefs I outlined above. STOP IT PEOPLE!** You are ruining our children and inadvertently perpetuating lies, lies, lies. I picked up on this in myself very early on when mini me said something that I thought must be inaccurate. The specific details were a bit off, it was an account told through a 2 year old’s eyes with their limited vocabulary, so it wasn’t literally true, but it was true. And, the flicker of confusion on her face when she understood that her narrative (facts, motivation, whatever) was being called into question broke my heart a little bit. I was very, very quick to make sure this never happened again (and I stomp all over it if I see someone else doing it with my kids). This means, as with everything involving a now-three year old, things take longer to get through, but that’s time very well spent in my book. Let’s see how well this goes. It’s just one of many, many MANY (oh my god so many!) things to be mindful of when raising little people.
** I am not actually targeting my wonderful readers, just shouting at the universe in frustration
Postscript - I can’t recall if I mentioned this before, but bringing up my kids is making me want to study child development in more detail. I did some modules on this in the one year of psychology I studied, so maybe it’s time to consider returning to some unfinished business.
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