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House Without Mouse
We had no inclement weather days off of school this week, even though it was still rather cold and wet. There was not much going on out of the ordinary schedule, so most of the week consisted of routine stuff.
Merritt has had a couple of days where he has been in a fantastic mood. He’ll play and enjoy himself, albeit noisily, for hours on end. I wonder if it has to do with a new habit he has: for maybe a couple of weeks now, he’ll wake up in the morning but just lay quietly in bed until we come to get him. He used to pop right up with his older brothers at 5:00 or so, but maybe it’s helping to slowly allow himself to become more alert before tackling the world. Of course, to balance that out, he often has complete meltdowns around 4:30 to 7:00 p.m., clearly indicating that he’s ready to sleep again.
Friday was a little different in that Carver stayed after school to try out for an upcoming talent show. It was a little disappointing as Carver had prepared a dance routine to Michael Jackson’s “Bad,” but someone in charge of the sound played the karaoke version, so Carver kept waiting for the vocals to start to really bust out his moves. By the time he realized that they weren’t coming, he asked if they could start the music over, but they just decided to end the audition. Thankfully, everyone who auditions gets in, so at least he’ll still get a chance to do his thing in front of everyone.
He had a headache most of yesterday, which is unusual for him. He awoke early this morning with a cough and a little bit of a sniffle, but he seems mostly himself, so we hope it’s nothing more that that.
Avey enjoyed a young women’s activity on Wednesday, and otherwise kept busy with school and hiding from her brothers. She’s got a report coming due, and decided to choose the mathematician John Nash as her subject, so she’s reading his biography to prepare. She’s been hired to dog-sit for our neighbors again soon, so she’s looking forward to raking in some more dough.
I was excited to see that one of my favorite comedians of late (James Acaster) is going to be doing a show in Chicago at the end of March, so we adults and Avey all bought tickets to go see him.
Hakan has taken a keen interest in Valentine’s Day this year. It seems like each day he’s practicing drawing and cutting out hearts, and he often asks for our help in composing Valentines to everyone in the house. A few days ago he asked for our help to write on a big sheet of paper, “When is Valentines?” and to tape it right next to the calendar in the kitchen. We’re glad to see him taking an interest in writing, and doing something so thoughtful with it.
Kira’s father’s headstone was put in recently, and she wanted to share it with everyone:
We will surely visit it the next time we head back to Colorado.
Aside from my day job, I did a couple of tasks on Saturday. We had two doors having trouble latching, so I fixed those, and then Hannah and I had thought we’d heard scratching in the attic. I kept discounting it, thinking it was just wind causing branches to scrape across the roof, but of course, we don’t have any trees that could touch the roof. My sister had mice in her attic at her last apartment, so she knew what it sounded like and suggested we look.
I went up into the attic and found a support board that needed to be refastened, and after a lot of looking I did finally find some mouse droppings. Following a little debate, I ran to get a mouse trap, and then set it in the area where I’d found them. I went to check it this morning, and found the little beast lifeless in the embrace of the trap. Let’s hope that’s the only one…
Aside from more dental appointments this week, we don’t expect too much out of the ordinary again, but life finds a way.