Heading out for the school run, baby already in buggy I noticed him looking even more animated than usual. Following his gaze I smiled when I saw he was looking at a cute mouse. Then did a double take. A mouse?! In my house?! As soon it saw me it dashed into a cupboard and I slammed the door shut thinking it would run under the floorboards and never be seen again. I should be so lucky.
On our return from school the girls went upstairs to get ready for hockey and there was an almighty scream. The mouse, admittedly only half the size of my thumb, was on the stair. Discovering my inner mouse shepherd I shouted at the girls to open the front door, nudged it down the stair and on to the path then collapsed with exhaustion feeling as though I’d vanquished a great enemy.
My older daughter doesn’t share her siblings love of animals but after the mouse experience is urging us to buy a cat. I have to say I’m with her. Although it was the tiniest mouse imaginable and the fact that it was on the stair has given my friends the amusing opportunity to break into song, it doesn’t seem so funny when I’m alone in the middle of the night. The kitchen scene from Ratatouille haunts me and for the last week I’ve been waking my husband to send him down for baby paraphernalia rather than risk venturing into a rodent house party on my own.
That’s when I can find my husband. For the last two nights we’ve had visitors over from France. A great friend from Courchevel and his niece who I thought was about eleven and who turned out to be a willowy six foot beauty of twenty. Our friend slept in the spare room, his niece in the girls room and our daughters who had friends for an impromptu sleepover took over our room leaving only the babys room, with cot and bunkbeds, available for my husband and me.
Post final feed I collapsed into the bottom bunk but when the baby awoke at 4am and I couldn’t settle him I tried to find my husband to send him down to the kitchen for a dummy. He wasn’t in the top bunk. He wasn’t on the floor of the girls room and I hoped to goodness he wasn’t with the twenty year old niece so summoning all my courage I ventured downstairs to brave the mice on my own. Thankfully there was no sign of our furry friend – just a husband snoring beatifically on the couch – but in the face of such potential danger a cat suddenly seems rather appealing.
Sleepless in silence in suburbia 