Yesterday I cleaned out our junk-laden garage. Don’t get me wrong. There’s still plenty of junk in there, but I took out the obvious never-going-to-need-it-again garbage like broken lamps and torn dog beds. Normally I would need weeks to build up enough motivation to tackle such a project, but this was totally spur of the moment. Why, you ask? Because of an uninvited guest(s).

See, when we remodeled our kitchen two years ago, I bagged up some food that I planned to donate. As usual, I procrastinated about dropping it off, and it ended up getting shoved into the garage with other kitchen paraphernalia to get it out of the way. Turns out, that food did get eaten after all. Yesterday after I dropped Falco off at preschool, I went into the garage to find an air pump for Matt’s birthday balloons and instead found empty, gnawed boxes of pasta and oatmeal and popcorn and the like. I started moving things, finding more rodent evidence, moving more things, until I had cleared out almost everything.

I actually saw the mouse three times during the cleaning process. (Let’s just say it’s one mouse and not a colony like in Ratatouille. Maybe two mice, a childless couple, would be OK.) I gave several warnings letting know the vagrant know that he was not welcome and should find a new home before the poison showed up. I got rid of every scrap of food and bedding and any other thing that would make the place hospitable for the little bugger, convinced that he would leave once the free food had run out.

This afternoon, Falco is getting ready for his nap and starts looking out his bedroom window into the garage window, saying he saw something. He goes on to say that he saw a mouse walking around. Then I remembered that I left the one remaining food source, grass seed, on top of the shelf under the window. After Falco is tucked in I go out to the garage, clap my hands to let Squeaky know I’m there, and the mouse walks out from under the grass seed and looks at me before running away! I leave to throw away the bags of seed, come back in to check for anything else I forgot, and when I glance over that little son of a gun is just sitting there looking at me. I tell him that I can see him and he gets out of sight, but not in much of a hurry.

He’s probably so fat from all the Pasta Roni that he can’t run. Or maybe he thinks we’re intentionally feeding him and he’s our pet. I’m not sure what to do at this point. Now that I’ve looked him in the eyes twice, I feel bad to try to kill him. I guess I could use a live trap and go release him miles from here, or I can just hope he leaves on his own now that all the food is gone. I don’t even want the pets I have; I certainly don’t need stray mice adopting me.

The good news is, I found the air pump.

Falco just finished his first week of preschool, and he adores it so far. From the minute we got there on the first day, he dove right in like he was at an amusement park. He isn’t upset when I leave, so it’s easy to kiss him goodbye and be on my way on my days off. (I drop him off three mornings and stay one morning each work because I’m a working parent.) The hardest part is getting him to leave when I pick him up.

I’m a little sad that he’s going to be three years old and is growing up so fast, but we were both ready for this. He has way too much energy to be contained, and there he can run and play and do art projects and get filthy for a few hours while I get a break a few mornings a week. It’s great that we chose a co-op because I’m still up in his business enough to make the separation easier (on me).

Oh, and did I mention that he gets filthy there? There is a huge playground/sand area, usually a painting project, and always a water table. Mix those with a child who constantly runs from one activity to the next, and you get wet clothes dragging in the dirt, sandy paint in hair, etc. I’m not one who’s fond of outdoors or getting dirty, but Falco is so happy that I don’t mind having to strip him at the door before he can come inside after school. I’ll leave you with this photo of his wet, sandy socks from his first day.