Fiddledeedee

The red light shows up on the dash of my mini van, the Mommymobile. Tom takes it into the shop. He calls me with bad news. Really bad news. It seems that vermin of some kind, as in rats, or squirrels, have gnawed their way into our engine. OK, not REALLY the engine, but the engine harnessy thing. But the damage is bad. Really bad. Like over a thousand dollars bad. Now we’re down to one car, and it’s a Prius (I like to call it the “sports car”). It seats two adults, and two children. We have three children.

So, Tom does a little research on this anomaly. It could have something to do with vermin seeking food. (Hmmm, like perhaps they could be smelling delicious McDonalds wrappers strewn throughout a mini van…not that we do that.) It seems it’s really not that uncommon an occurrence, and insurance should cover it. Well that’s good news. So the little housewife calls the insurance company to see if we’re covered. I’m told that we’re not. I tell my big strong husband that perhaps he should call Mr. Insurance man and see if we’re covered. Well, it seems that we are covered after all. Allrightythen.

This “rodent damage” is going to take about a week or so to fix. Excuse me? That means that Mommy is stuck at home with these 3 children for a week or more? This means war. You mess with Mommy’s ride, and something’s got to die.

At this point, we have discovered a couple of large rats living on the side of our house by the air conditioner, within close enough proximity to the driveway. I’m guessing that these were the same Mr. and Mrs. Rat that had taken up residence under my grill cover, when said grill was parked outside of the screened-in porch. This I know as fact because I am the chief griller in the family. And I’m also smart. I often asked Daddy to remove the grill cover, after the discovery of a snake napping under it. But that’s another story. So, it was the husband who removed the grill cover exposing the rats (while I stood a safe distance across the yard, screaming).

So this is war. We stand in our family room eyeing the fence in our backyard. We see squirrels and such scampering back and forth, like targets at the shooting gallery at the carnival. We thought it would be a good idea to build our house up against the nature preserve. Tom says as he eyes the potential targets, “Why don’t I just buy a gun?” I look at my 3 children playing innocently on the floor, “I’ll give you 3 good reasons…..no 4….you never know when I’m going to go postal”.

So, he heads off to Lowes to buy the rat trap. He comes back, suits up, loads up the trap with a tasty morsel, and heads down the side of the house. The next morning, bingo, he’s got his kill. And it’s a big one. My girls think it’s really cool. I refuse to look. So, one down, one to go. The next night, he reloads the trap. Next morning, the food is gone, the trap is sprung, no rat. The next day, he rubber-bands the food to the trap. Next morning, the trap is sprung, no food, but the rubber band is still there, and still no rat. This goes on a couple more days with the same results. I cut Tom off from my peanut butter stash.

I’ve reasoned by this time, that the dead rat was the mister. The smarter female counterpart is living quite large and well on the side of our house. I suppose now I’ll have to clean out the mini van every so often. Until I come up with a new plan………..I’ve heard moth balls will repel vermin. I may not be popular with the neighbors, but hey, this is war.

Will I ever get a full nights sleep again? I thought once I had my babies sleeping through the night I would have it made. But no. Teething only happens in the middle of the night. Bad dreams only happen in the middle of the night. Large ugly cockroaches only happen in the middle of the night. Not long ago, I was awakened by a shrieking Emme in her bathroom. My first thought was “dear Lord, someone’s on fire” as I stumble down the hall. Mid-stumble I hear her say “It’s HUGE! AAAHHHH! I’m thinking to myself, “Whatever “it” is, “it” had better be the size of a freaking dog or I’m really going to be mad”. Well, to her credit, it was an impressive cockroach. We made Daddy kill it.

It seems every single night it’s something with one of them. I think they put their 3 little heads together and take turns torturing us with middle-of-the-night rendezvous. Last night was no exception. I was awakened out of a Tylenol PM stupor (cramps…..don’t judge me) by Cailey yelling in the bathroom. I make it to the bathroom in breakneck speed, yanking off my black zorro mask as I run down the hall, to find my sweet baby girl forlornly standing in the largest puddle of pee I’ve ever slipped on. She looked up and said, “Mommy, I went pee-pee in my kajamies. Who could be mad at that! I managed to get her, the floor and my feet cleaned up. But not before waking up everyone else in the house.

So, at about 5:30 am, as I’m standing in our family room with Jensen, Emme, and Daddy. I’m clutching a rather large cup of coffee and I realize……the only person in the house that is sleeping is Cailey.