And The Stockings Were Hung

Well......our stockings are hung and the tree is up (not decorated though), but our story is more about the mouse....you know, "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring"....well except for the mouse that we found in Spidey & SuperStar's room this afternoon. BigGuy was in there helping them clean up and he was pulling things out from under the bed and noticed something dart. He came and told me the "Carol" thing I just wrote (he is clever that one) and then we went back into the room with the intents to catch us a mousie. Now, the last mouse we had in our house was BC (Before Children). Our cat Barkley caught it and brought it to bed with us one night - this time Barkley showed ZERO interest. We put all the kids stuff in a pile in the center of the room, BigGuy got ready for the mouse and we jostled his area - only he darted, hit BigGuys leg, jumped up and over and scurried under the dresser - so we moved the pile to the hallway (because the mouse appeared smart and if he got into the pile we would have had to figure out which way to....well anyway.....we got everything ready to move the dresser and I moved the furniture against the wall where he might dart - only he was already there - then he moved to the other dresser - then when we almost had him there he jumped really high, scared the buggers out of me I mean he jumped up waist high), I started screeching, the kids went to higher ground on the top of the bunkbed saying things like, "You are scaring me Mommy" (like I was the Olympic jumping mouse terrorizing us all) and then it got around BigGuy again - across the hall and under our bed (where Barkley was lazing and didn't even bat a whisker). We cleared the underneath of our bed (surprisingly clean I might add) and figured it was gone because there was nothing left except the tube of Christmas paper to which I said, "Well, unless he is in that tube of paper he is in our bathroom." BigGuy tipped the tube up (which I would not have done because the thing might have scooted right down into his eye - eeeekkkk!!!) and there it was. BigGuy put the plastic container into the bathroom sink, the tube end into that, tapped the tube, the mousie came out and we closed the container.
The kids bopped around excited about it - we briefly discussed keeping it as a pet - then put him in the laundry room to await his fate. None of us could have killed him - especially since Danny just recently passed - so BigGuy donned his clothes and took the mouse for a ride - far away and dumped him in a corn field. It is super cold, icy and snowy here, but mice are made for burrowing and finding warm tiny spots. He was an exciting moment in our Sunday - and he totally got the kids room cleaned.