A Battle...

First, you need a little back story.
When I was in college I lived in a little apartment in a brick building. It was great, but I slept on an air mattress because I couldn't afford a real bed. A dear friend of mine came to visit me one day and made fun of me for 'camping in the bedroom.' She offered to give me an old mattress she had in her garage. Score, right?! I was so excited. She delivered my new mattress and I slept on it blissfully for weeks. I started noticing odd things happening in my apartment. For example, all of the buttons were suddenly gone from the cordless phone I frequently left on the floor. That kind of thing happens, right? The buttons are suddenly scraped off of your phone? Sure.  Then one night I saw a mouse. I had NEVER seen a mouse in my apartment. No pests of any kind! I spent a whole night chasing it around, caught it, and put it outside. I chalked it up to some weird fluke. After all, 3 years of rodentless bliss should count for some security, right?  I told my landlady about it and she immediately called in a pest control guy to check for holes and cracks. They didn't find anything amiss. He decided it probably had wandered in from outside when the door was propped open.
A week later I was sleeping peacefully in my lovely mattress. I awoke to a... thump on my head and something scrabbling around in my hair. I sat up quickly and turned on the light. There was nothing in my hair. I thought it was a bad dream... until I heard a distinctive thump to the floor and a scurry. Yes, you read that right. A scurry. I saw a mouse running through my bedroom to the living room. I leaped from my bed and started chasing it, moaning in disgust. It took me 3 hours, but I caught it in an upturned bowl and tossed him outside. Bleck. So. Gross. I went to my parent's house to get some relief from the relentless rodent invasion. Having been up for most of the night catching my uninvited guest, I was extremely tired. I fell asleep on their couch with a blanket pulled over my head to protect me from mice.  While I was sleeping, I once again, for the second time in 24 hours, was awoken to a thump and a scurry on my head.  No, I'm not kidding. Seriously. There was a mouse on my head. I. FROKE. OUT.  This was only made worse when I got back to my apartment and found yet another mouse in my apartment.  I checked my messages and had one from my landlady, saying that she had happened to notice me moving a new mattress in recently and wondered if it might not have been stored in a garage. Why yes, I thought, it had. What of it?  Turns out I had moved an entire mouse city into my tiny apartment. Not just moved it in, mind you, but SLEPT on in. For WEEKS! Who knows how many midnight visitors walked in my hair or over my face while I slept the sleep of the college student crashing after finals week?! Did you know that mice pee continuously?! Every time they take a step they pee!!!  (excuse me, I can't write about this without feeling dirty. I'm going to take a shower)

Where was I. Oh yeah. Mouse city. That I slept on. During the time period BMC (Before Mouse City), I wasn't scared of mice. I didn't like them in houses because of the filth thing and the plague thing, but I generally thought they were cute if they were outside and bore them no ill will.  AMC (After Mousal Contamination) I noticed a shift in my attitude. I went from being mildly startled when I was caught unawares by a mouse to an absolute hatred/terror of them. Seriously. I shiver just thinking about them.
This all leads me to what happened last week.  Meron and I were sitting around, waiting for her dance class to start, when I saw one. A rodent invader. IN. MY. HOUSE! My safe, cozy house. BLARG! The house next door to us has been vacant for a long time but someone finally bought it and is renovating it. I supposed that a mouse had come looking for a quieter place to sleep (clearly it hadn't met  my children yet). I called my mother and told her. She squealed with me for a while and then told me that I would be safe in bed, because mice can't climb stairs.  I yelled at her, "I'm 32 YEARS OLD MOTHER! I KNOW MICE CAN CLIMB STAIRS!!" She replied that she was only trying to help, because she remembered that time that the mice kept crawling around on me while I slept. GARRRR! I envisioned them scurrying up the stairs while I slept and climbing over Nathan to get to me.  While I appreciated Mom's attempt at soothing me, it was unsuccessful.  I called Nathan and told him we were moving out. He told me that was silly. So I told him we were burning our house down. He declined. I told him that he had to come up with a viable alternative to keeping me safe from THEM. He mumbled something smarmy about mice being known as the assassins of the animal world and said he'd get a trap. Now.... I hate mice. Really, I do. But I also hate killing things. I have seen mice caught in traps before and it is horrible. Especially when they don't die but are all broken. Awful. So I made him get live traps so that we could catch the filthy bugger and put him out in the country somewhere.
A great plan, right? Nathan and I put peanut butter sandwiches in some live traps and left them in the places we had seen the mouse.  We left for our big trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, arrogantly certain that we would return to a mouse free house. Or, at least, a house that contained a mouse in a live trap.
Much to my dismay, we didn't have a mouse contained in a live trap. We had a live trap full of mouse poop with no peanut butter sandwich in it.  Now, not only did we have a mouse, we had a stronger, faster, peanut butter sustained mouse who had learned to crave our food!!
Off to the store for a different brand of live trap. We set them up. We caught nothing. And I found a piece of mouse poop in the strainer in the kitchen. That's right, the place where we put clean dishes.  After rinsing my mouth with bleach, I went over to talk to the dogs. They LIVE in the kitchen. Stu freaks out if there is a FLY in the kitchen. How could he have let this happen?!?!
Then I saw what was in Rosie's mouth. It was the trap. One of the traps that was completely out of the normal range of where Rosie and Stu go in our house.  And there was a puddle of blood on the carpet. Normally, I'd have a problem with blood on the floor. This time? Not so much. I feel bad that the mouse had to die. Dogs have bad breath... it couldn't have been pleasant.  But am I sorry? Not gonna lie... I petted the dogs just a little bit extra last night.  And Nathan is a little embarrassed that Stu and Rosie saved me from the assassin mouse when he couldn't.

Things you have missed...

Kai's first day of school. Seriously. What a charmer.

 Lots of school, lots of work. Kindergarten and preschool going great for everyone. Work crazy crazy busy, but going well.
I turned 32. And... well... that happened.
Then, oh, did I mention THIS happened?

For reals... I painted my toes before we left. Hiking/canoe trips are hard on a girl's nail polish.  Details to follow. Seriously... one hell of a trip.

Babies

Headed to pre school open house...

First day of kindergarten for Hani. First day of Pre School for Mer. Kai's first day of school is tomorrow.... and he is mad.  You can't tell by his attempt at a smile, can you?

So excited to watch Hani blossom this year. All day school will be so good for her and I think she is going to have so much fun.

This girl? She cried hysterically when Hani got to go to orientation yesterday and Meron didn't have any school. She can write Hana's name, but only the M and the O in Meron. She is so ready for school.

And Kai? Well, I suffered quite a lot of verbal abuse this morning when he had to stay home with me instead of going to school. So excited that tomorrow is his day. It is going to be a great year.

My baby girls started dance this week.  You have no idea how excited they were. Seriously... They asked me EVERY SINGLE DAY if today was THE day.  Hana's was on Tuesday night.  We got really crappy pictures because the lighting in the waiting room was weird. 

 She had a blast. She thought it was really fun and liked her teacher, even though he was a boy.

 

Meron had to wait until today to have class. It nearly did her in. We kept having to drag her out of Hani's class while we were waiting... she'd sneak over and open the door and try to walk in as soon as I turned my head. As soon as she woke up this morning she asked if it was time to go to dance class yet (no baby, not at 6:15am).  We were smarter this time and took pictures before we left. I can't even deal with how cute they were in their pink tights and leotards.

 When we were walking into the studio Meron asked, "Mama, are there grown up ballerinas?" I told her that there were, and that people who wanted to have dancing as a job had to work really hard at it and practice a lot. Meron said, "Oh Mama. I can work REALLY hard." Watching her walk into the studio was magic.  It was like... home. She walked up to the teacher, held her hand and said, "I'm Meron. Can we dance now?"

 She had so much fun. Her only complaint? Class was way to short. "I just want to dance and dance, Mama. Can't we stay longer and dance?"

 I am so proud of them both... and so excited to watch them learn.

Sisters

I love my sister. We fought a lot and often didn't get along (cause she just HAD to watch Teen@ge Mutant Ninj@ Turtles which was on during the Fre$h Prince of Bel @ire) but I remember countless hours spent giggling and playing together. She is still one of the first people I call when I am really, truly sad. She knows more about me than almost anyone on the planet.
I was so excited for Meron to have a sister. When Hani came home and we realized how close in age they were I imagined something similar for them. I knew they would fight and disagree sometimes, but that they would be best friends in the end.
That really didn't happen. Meron wanted to be best friends with Hani. She loves her sister. Hani, as I've said many times  before, was bitter about the competition for our affection that Meron represented to her. Meron was rejected time and time again. I watched her be hurt when she would hug Hani and Hana would stiffen up, hand remaining at her sides unless prompted to return the hug. It was hard. I understood Hani's reluctance and anger. I understood her fear that we would love Mer best because she had been there the longest. I understood Hana resenting having to compete.... but it was really hard.  Mer took a step back from Hana after a while and, while they played together very well, Mer transferred a lot of her affection to Kai.  She mothers him and plays with him in equal measures. She began hugging him more and he reciprocated.  I kind of thought it would always be a little like that... Meron and Kai would  be close, and Hani would be kind of an outsider. It broke my heart for all three of them for different reasons.
Lately though, I have noticed a certain... thawing out from Hana. It began a while ago with her seeking Meron out to play much more than she sought out Kai.  A few weeks ago I noticed the girls watching tv with their arms around each others' shoulders. It made me tear up. I was so glad to see it.  Last week, Hana was trying to find something to wear and she called Meron upstairs to help her pick something out. What is more sisterly than that? And today, the icing on the cake.  When the girls came downstairs this morning, Meron was wearing Hana's pants and Hana was wearing Meron's shirt.  Do you have any idea how big of a deal this simple, sisterish act was? Such a  big deal for Hana to let Meron wear a favorite pair of pants. Such a big deal to give and to receive willingly. I love watching this relationship slowly develop, and so glad that Meron and Hana are finally on their way to having what I desperately want for them both. There is nothing more precious in this world than a good sister.
Now, we just need to find a brother for Kai.