Imaginations Running Wild

It's common knowledge to every mother in the world. When your children are playing together nicely for an extended period of time, and you are relishing in the pure joy of having this moment of peace to yourself...BE VERY SUSPICIOUS.


At lunch yesterday my boys decided that it would be great fun to trap a mouse in the house. We have no reason to believe that there is a mouse in our house, but that information would not deter them.


After lunch, I was in the other room doing laundry and sneaking a few moments to read a book. I could overhear them talking about how cool it would be to have string go from here to there, and how the net could trap the mouse, and how....you get the idea. I naively thought this was all for pretend.

Then I walked out and saw this.


That would be a trail of cheese on my kitchen floor. At the beginning of the trail (the top of the picture) there is an air vent. Hanging down that air vent was a piece of string tied around some cheese. According to my children, a mouse should think it is fun to run through the air ducts; therefore, it is a perfect cheese-hanging location.

When the mouse was eating that cheese, the 7 year old would then lift the vent up, and naturally the mouse would come out and continue eating down the line of cheese. Woe to the poor little mouse, who would not know that the last piece of cheese is directly under the bug-catching net. When the mouse reached the end of the line, the 4 year old would yank that string tied to the net, and "WHAM!" the mouse is caught.

The enthusiasm they had for this very believable plan was almost disturbing. After a mouse did not appear in the vent within a few minutes, my youngest son walked to the garage calling, "Here, mousey, mousey!" while my oldest son went to fetch a ladder to see if there were any mice on the roof.

My mother's intuition kicked in at this point, and I nixed the ladder and roof plan. A few minutes later the little guy came inside to report that his brother was indeed trying to get on the roof. I opened the door to find a big trash can upside down on the porch, with a little one stacked on top of it. "You said I couldn't use a ladder....".

I am happy to report that there has been no mouse, no roof-climbing, and no cheese molding in the vent. Only 2 little boys thinking their mother is a dream-killer.