ok, mice. you win.

Believe it or not, I try really hard to not complain or vent on here about extraneous things in our life. I want this blog to be a record of the babies and a constant reminder of how blessed we feel having them.
That said, the mice issue is completely driving me insane! I haven't blogged about it in a while, since we've been so busy having family in, getting the babies to A YEAR, etc. Here's a quick update:
1. we have not caught a SINGLE mouse in ANY trap that Terminex has left. Not one!
2. we still see a ton of "evidence". everywhere.
3. (and most horribly). The night before the babies' birthday party, we had taken them for their first swim at Grampa and Popi's hotel pool. Yes, it was as cute as you might imagine. When we put the babies down that night, they were exhausted (LOTS of swimming, occasional drinking of pool water, out past their bedtimes, etc.), so it was a tough bedtime. As Ben and I were getting ready for bed, he saw a mouse run past him in the hallway INTO VIOLET'S ROOM. Horrible, horrid, disgusting, sickening. We stood there for a good ten minutes weighing our options. Do we go in and most likely awaken our sleepy girl, only to either not find the mouse, or find it and...do what? Chase it out? Stomp on it? Scream like little girls? We debated the likelihood of a mouse being able to climb up a leg of the crib. In the end, we made the decision to let Violet sleep, and cracked her door, hoping the mouse would come out on it's own. THIS was the last straw though.
After many, many phone calls to Terminex (have I mentioned their services are guaranteed?), they finally came out yesterday. I told him where we've seen the droppings (um, everywhere?), about the incident with Violet's room, etc. He decided that they must be coming in from our neighbors, who have dogs (therefore, dog food, which mice like), where they eat, then seek refuge and "playtime" (his words, not mine) in our house. Lovely. He blocked up holes he found in the basement stairs, in our pocket doors (unusable now- we will need to be buying baby gates galore!) and in the upstairs bathroom. He found a big hole in Ben and I's bedroom, which is most comforting, and proceeded to tell me a tale of how they come in through that hole, "play" in our dirty laundry, where they urinate and poop (yes, he said "poop"), and look for nest materials. It's a good feeling to know you have invisible mouse pee on your clothes. So, at this point, we wait. If anyone has any other advice for us, we would be so grateful.

On a happy, blessed, much more important topic, I wanted to blog about Ollie and Violet's new game (THIS is playtime, people. Babies, not mice.). We've started pulling the trundle bed out from under our L-shaped couch, for them to have a gym-like setting to play on. They LOVE it- they can crawl up to look out the window, or at themselves in the mirror, or even just flop around on all of the pillows without falling. A few days ago, they started to do this sort of (prepare yourself, Uncle Adam) wrestling game! They each get on one end of the L, and then crawl toward each other, semi-fast. When the meet in the middle, the get up on their knees, and "wrestle"- grabbing arms, butting heads, trying to bite each other (playfully, luckily!). They laugh and talk through it all, and then one will head off to the opposite end of the couch, and the other will follow suit. It is hilarious and adorable! I will try to get a video this week.
daddy carrying Violet on his shoulders at the street fair
mommy talking with the babies during lunch
grammy feeding Violet at the fair

exhaustion

While we will never, ever be as tired as we were during the babies' first three months of life (having to set the alarm to wake up to feed every three hours, getting two hours of sleep at a time, watching muted reruns of "Cosby Show" just to stay awake during a 2am feeding, falling asleep while pumping, etc.), we are getting a little too close for comfort. Oliver and Violet have started waking again at night. It started the night before my first rehearsal for the opera. Did they sense the impending change? Who knows. Anyhow, since then, both babies have had trouble falling asleep and even more trouble staying asleep. After four nights of this, I called the pediatrician who told us her best guess was teething. Ollie is getting one of his top chompers in, and Violet must be (finally) getting her first tooth. It is really, really difficult.

As I was driving home from rehearsal last night, my eyes felt so, so heavy. I kept thinking about the old Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs was so tired that he put toothpicks on each of his eyes to pry them open. I think he may have been on to something.

On a more pleasant note, Oliver has quickly caught up to his sister, with a steady stream of "Mama"s and "Baba"s. Violet is now saying both "Dada" and "Gaga", which you can see on the video above. They are so sweet and funny.

Oh, and for those of you keeping score:

Mice seen: 6
Mice caught: 0

Grrrr....

mice are smart

I know, I know- everything I read says how stupid mice are- they can't see, they can barely smell, etc. Not our mice. Just when we had started to relax around here (walked around barefoot again, felt comfortable entering a room without scanning the premises and making loud noises), out they came! And with the worst timing, of course.
Last night, Violet had a little trouble getting to sleep. Sometimes if she's too tired, our girl needs a little rocking before bed- not often, but we can always tell right away when she'll need it. So, last night, I brought her downstairs with me to rock in the glider for a few minutes. I had turned off all of the lights, had my beloved American Idol on mute, and she fell asleep immediately. Suddenly, the glow of Ryan Seacrest's face illuminated a disagusting, black rodent running across the living room, maybe a foot from where we were rocking. ACROSS THE BABIES' KICK TOYS!!!!
Have you ever tried to whisper-scream? It's very hard. I leapt from the rocker, and whisper-screamed for Ben up the stairs. My sweet bug stayed asleep through it all!
Anyhow- Violet went up to bed. Ben and I saw ANOTHER mouse in the living room, and the original mouse hid under the piano in the dining room. We just stood there, me on the piano bench, Ben with the broom in his hand (?), just standing guard; WAY past our bedtime. Finally, we decided to grab some of the glue traps from the basement and position them around the piano, with some peanut butter on them. Absolutely disgusting.
Here's where brain evidence #2 comes in. This am, we all get up at 6am and troop downstairs, truly hoping to find dead mice in the traps. Not only were there no mice, BOTH traps had been PUSHED ACROSS THE FLOOR with the peanut butter EATEN!!!!

This is officially war.
Today I will be scrubbing my floors and every baby item with bleach.
And calling the exterminator.

On a happier note, none of the above really matters once you watch this video. Our sweet boy has learned a new skill. Just call him "Eskimo Ollie". And a photo of the cool girl, just hangin'.