Tuesday wasn't a "normal" day...
I was able to hop in the shower and be ready for the day BEFORE lunch time, and so I texted Brett to see if he wanted to meet at the Country General Store for lunch because someone needed to see me showered and dressed with makeup on, since I went to all the effort, ha!
As I was buckling the kids into their carseats, Vivienne spit her pacifier out, the one I handed her that was sitting in her carseat cupholder. She looked at me confused, and handed it to me--it had a giant hole in it. For a split-second, I thought that she probably did it on the last car drive. But she never has done anything like that before and our last car drive was short. Then suddenly, my vision scaled back and I saw the car in a "bigger picture" and noticed what looked like mouse droppings all over. I frantically unbuckled the kids and told Brett that he should just come home for lunch and he could look the car over when he came. I was also dying inside that Vivienne likely just put a pacifier in her mouth that a mouse gnawed through.
Brett came home and took a quick glance and agreed that it indeed, looked like mouse droppings. He popped the hood of the car and then started to look more thoroughly on the inside. He opened the glove compartment and said, "Oh man, there is a mouse nest in here". I promptly burst into tears. A rodent was making a home in my car, and heaven forbid it was preparing to give birth in there or something! (Google said it might have been the case, but it's best if I don't think of what might have happened). Despite my whole-hearted attempts at embracing rural living so far (which I feel like I have done fairly well overall), this was not something on my radar at all, and I was emotionally not prepared to think about it the moment I got the news (which was clearly evidenced by my sobbing and trying to laugh at myself all at once).
Brett came into the house and had a quick peanut butter and honey sandwich and grabbed his work gloves. He was going to remove the nest and inspect the inside of the car. Landon was all too eager to hopefully see a mouse, but Brett thought it was likely not there. Brett said, "Landon, come look and see the mouse nest", so Landon scurried along and I trailed behind making sure my baby boy wouldn't touch a thing. All of a sudden Brett let out a shriek and started laughing and yelling, "there's a mouse in here!" which was about to make me cry all over again.
The mouse scurried under the front passenger seat and Brett couldn't get it to leave. He cleaned out the car and nest all while still trying to get the mouse out. He finally laid out a few traps with peanut butter and hoped that it would be trapped by the time he returned home from work.
Meanwhile, I decided to hunker down and do something I was capable of doing--which was finding cats and kittens. Cats and kittens usually aren't super hard to find, because a lot of people love having cats on their property and those cats usually end up having kittens, and so they multiply rather quickly. Fellow country folk are usually happy to give away a few kittens when they feel like they have a lot. So, I took to social media and made plans to meet a couple people in the Walmart parking lot at 7pm that night.
When Brett got home, he checked the traps and there was still no mouse, but it was clear it had been moving around and navigating through the car. Eww and so frustrating. We took the truck to town and got dinner (because we were already making a trip out there and since I was being dramatic anyway, I told Brett I wasn't going to be making dinner that night). Then we picked up our cat and two kittens, bought cat food, and headed home. But on the way out of town, I had Brett stop and buy me a gigantic milkshake--because I had already met my Diet Dr. Pepper quota of the day and I still just couldn't deal. I am almost positive he thinks I am a total diva now. But if my inner-diva is going to come out, it would be when a mouse has built a nest in and taken over my car. When we got home, the kids wouldn't stop loving all over the cat and kittens. We finally pried them away, took baths, and got them to bed.
Brett checked the car again--still no trapped mouse. Ugh! Traps had been set for over 8 hours. We decided to try something we heard online--douse some cotton balls with peppermint oil. We threw about 6 in there and put most of them under the seat we thought the mouse was under, in hopes to draw it out. Thirty minutes later, and the mouse was trapped. Hallelujah! It immediately turned me into an essential oils "believer". Someone sell me all of the peppermint oil!
Brett cleaned the car out really well, I gave the carseats a really good cleaning. We also stocked up on mouse traps and I have yet to drive the car. But we seem to have survived the whole ordeal, so I'll call it a success. Now I pray that it never happens again. And that our cats are good "mousers".
