L-O-N-G Night

Last night, after my boys were in bed, I was catching up on some of my DVR'd shows, enjoying the quiet house and sitting in the dark, except for the Christmas tree lights. It was perfect. That is, until I heard a very distinct scratching sound coming from the kitchen. I sat and listened for a few minutes to be sure what it was before I went to wake my Hero to save the day/night. I even tiptoed into the kitchen to see if I could see "it." Nothing but scratching. I was pretty sure it was coming from under the stove though. So I woke Hero and gave him the bad news. A mouse is in the house. He hates them as much as me, so I knew he would not sleep well knowing one was running loose in the house. With me standing in a kitchen chair, and Hero standing guard with a broom, we tried to get our plan together. Before we could, the mouse shot out from under the stove and went under the refrigerator. We did not want him in the laundry room since there are many more places to hide in there, although we were pretty certain he had passed through there on his way to our warm kitchen. Well, sure enough, it ran into the laundry room. In the meantime, Hero had gotten some bait and traps. There was no time to set them, because this mouse wanted out of our house as much as we wanted him gone! He was everywhere. Finally, Hero was able to get the broom, and he helped the little guy settle in for a long winter's nap. Whew! Did I mention that all this was over at 11:30? We were exhausted and headed for bed. On one of my many trips up during the night, I was in the kitchen and heard more scratching! It was 3:30AM, and honestly at that point, I would have opened the door and welcomed him in. I was too tired to care. But I did tell Hero about it since he was getting up for work. So I woke up this morning to traps and bait set out everywhere. We haven't caught the second one yet, but I haven't heard anymore scratching this morning either. Did I mention that we absolutely HATE mice!?!