It's NOT Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House

We have mice! Yuck! Stupid rodents. With all the construction and remodeling somewhere they've found a way into the house. Hobbes, our big useless cat, chased one this morning and had it cornered and stopped inches from catching it. He didn't know what to do. Since then he's been guarding the spot where it took refuge under the kitchen cabinets.

I guess in the future I'll have to use Hobbes in the role of a Pointer dog. He'll point the mouse out and I'll have to blast it with my gun, or Shane's BB gun. Which we did use once to kill a mouse, but it was too slow and painful of a death for even me to want to inflict on a mouse again.

I've set a trap, but I really need to get some sticky traps or something. You'd think with all the technology we would have come up with a better way to get rid of rodents by now. I get so nervous setting the "snap" traps. I could never work on a bomb squad. And although I feel sticky traps are more effect it is pretty lousy that the mouse doesn't die. So then there is the problem of what to do with a live mouse. This is where the BB gun came in one time. Or I guess I can peel them off and throw them to the cats.

I did have one incident, years ago, where a cat ate the mouse off the tray. Disgusting but so funny. I got up to find a glue covered cat with a mouse tail stuck to one side of their head and the glue trap stuck to the other. I washed, lotioned and shaved the cat all in an attempt to get the glue off. The entire time poor kitty was actually burping. I've never heard a cat burp before or since, but it sounds a lot like a regular burp. I guess mouse a' la glue doesn't go down too smooth.

Sadly oh so sadly my best mouser cat Calvin 2 disappeared this weekend. I don't know where he went. He didn't get hit on the road. I suspect he might have crawled on or in a vehicle and taken a ride. He was always looking for a car to climb on. Sigh... I really liked him.


It's 7 am, and I just put Lil' Vance on the bus for one of the last times. The last day of school is Friday. But Friday is only a 2 hour day so he'll probably only go tomorrow. The end of his school days is very bitter sweet for me. I won't really miss the early morning getting ready for school or having to rush home to meet the bus in the afternoon. But the lack of school presents its own problems. Namely, what will Lil' Vance do now??? Answers. No not really.

Blake has been such a busy boy lately, crawling, crawling everywhere. I've been shopping for baby gates. In my wildest imaginings I can't see the boy's rooms ever being baby proofed. So that end of the house will have to be gated off. As soon as we get the door in to the laundry room I'm going to have to move Duchess and her food and water bowls out there. Blake makes a beeline for them every time. He mostly wants to play in the water.

He also learned to wave last Thursday. Something he's very proud of. It just tickles me to no end. His right arm waves up and down like he's working on one armed flight. While his left arm waves back and forth like he's practicing his wave for Miss America. So so cute!

So for today it looks like I need to go shopping for mouse traps and baby gates. Plus mow the yard (again! already!), send off some pictures, and mud the dry wall in my closet. I know. Way too much it will never all get done in one day. At least it is another beautiful summer like day.

Blake says...

Listen closely and you'll hear Blake say Doggie for the first time. To his proud Mama and Dad it sounds pretty clear. I was taping him yesterday playing with Maggie and was pretty surprised when he said doggie back to me.

It is almost a 2 minute video so you have to wait for it. It is basically right at the end. If you listen close you can hear what sounds like him saying it really softly to himself first before turning and saying it a little more clearly.
My video editing skills are still lacking. It tried playing around with it to shorten it, but couldn't figure out how.

Enjoy!

And He's Off...Almost

Yesterday evening Blake actually crawled! He's been scooting on his butt for a while now. He'd rock forward onto his hands and knees and stretch and reach as far as he could for a toys, and then sit back down. Yesterday he was playing on the floor with Dad and I was vacuuming. He loves the vacuum so I kept getting it closer and closer to him, but just out of reach. He was up on his hands and knees and then he took off. He didn't make it very far, probably just a couple feet. The really cute part is I don't think he is aware of what he was doing. He was so intent on getting that vacuum that he just went for it. It will be fun to see if he figures it out in the next couple of days.

This video is from a couple weeks ago. It features one of his FAVORITE things...the cat. I was laughing so hard you might hear me snorting a time or two in the background. I apologize for that.
Poor Hobbes I pretty well pitch him to Blake whenever I want to keep Blake busy or make him happy. I look at is at Hobbes doesn't catch mice, they scare him. Actually spiders scare this cat, so this is his way of earning his keep. In this clip Blake found Hobbes and then had him cornered.

The Pool is Full

Cell phone coverage has been a little spotty with the overload of calls. So I just wanted everyone to know we survived the monsoon! Thankfully we are high, dry and ok.

Hearing all sorts of reports from around us. Watertown got somewhere between 8-10 inches of rain in a 2 day total. Nashville has various totals from 12-15 inches. All main interstates have been shut down at various times. I kept wondering why they weren't routing cars off of interstate until I saw on the news that those cars were on a "island" of interstate.

The big thing now is watching to see where the Cumberland river crests in downtown Nashville. They were hoping it would stop at 48 feet. It's now at 50'7".

They evacuated 1500 guests and staff from Gaylord Opryland Hotel and moved them to Lil' Vance's old high school McGavock. There is now 6 feet of water in the hotel. The Opryland mall adjacent to the hotel is also surrounded by water.

The situation is very sad. People have died others are missing. Homes, cars and business are destroyed. Roads, bridges and railroad tracks are wiped out. The passenger train that runs behind our house went by Saturday morning and was never able to return. I've heard different counts on the people that had to be evacuated off of it late Saturday one count was 153 and another was 450 so not sure which is accurate.

They didn't have enough boats to rescue people from their homes, condos and apartments. Water rescues continue this morning. The areas affected are so broad that its a little hard to keep up with. Obviously most are by rivers or streams. But the homes that have flooded are not all in flood plains. There are entire subdivisions that are under water up to their roofs. Some homes that are flooded are ironically burning.

Wilson County schools are closed as are all of middle TN schools. Shane made it to Vol State for his finals today only to have them close the campus at 10.
On the bright side the sun is shining and the rain has stopped. The forecast for the week is sunny, 80's and dry.

Zoo

A week ago Friday Blake and I went with Lil' Vance's class to the Nashville Zoo. I was slightly apprehensive as I knew it would be a long hot day and I didn't know how Blake would do. He did great!
Most of the day Blake wanted to be carried. Here's one of the few of Blake riding in his stroller. I kept pointing out to Blake all the other babies were riding in their strollers. I don't think he cared.

They had a cute play area for toddlers that was all padded. Probably be something that Blake will enjoy by the end of the summer. This is just outside of the play area. That's actually a kind of rubber surface that Blake is sitting on.

The reptile house was super hot and humid. I don't think Blake really was interested in any of the snakes or lizards. Not enough movement to attract and hold his attention. He did like the big fish in the aquariums. They also had some ducks in a river area that he enjoyed.

The petting zoo part was a hit. This little goat was pretty fascinated by Lil' Vance's chair so Blake had plenty of time to pet him.

Overall the day was a success. Blake hung in there like a little trooper. I think he enjoyed people and baby watching more than the animals. Maybe in a couple months we'll try again and see if he's a little more interested.

My little water bug! I filled up a plastic tub and set him in the living room to play. Big hit! I do think he would have splashed for a long time.