Unwelcome Guest

I'm not a morning person.  I never have been.  I need some time to yawn and stretch and try to come to life.  I really prefer if that process can be done quietly...without interruption...without chaos...without words.  Sadly, with three kids in the house who have places to be starting at 7:30 on school mornings, I hit the ground running more days than not.  This morning hit with a particularly rude awakening.

As I was staggering out of bed, there was pandemonium in Erin's room.  Somehow, a mouse had found its way into the back of her closet, wriggled its way into a mesh bag of shells she had stored there, got stuck, and died.  That's actually not the worst of it.  The thing was not just dead, it was actively degenerating in her closet (this explains the stench coming from her room awhile back, a smell we attributed at the time to the domesticated pets who reside in her room).  When Erin went to move the shells, the dead, decaying mouse sort of fell apart, and bugs starting crawling out of it.  She freaked out and asked for my help.

I've mentioned before about my abject terror of mice.  They creep me out beyond words.  In my more rational moments I understand there's nothing to be afraid of, regardless of whether the creature is dead or alive.  When I see them in either state, however, I truly come unglued.

Poor Erin.  She was truly in crisis mode, and with good reason.  She came out of her room wide-eyed and a bit freaked out.  She explained the situation going on in her room and asked for my help.  Gulp.  First thing in the morning + irrational fear = bad parenting moment.  I told her she had to clean it up all by herself.  Her shoulders slumped.  She had tears in her eyes.  She turned away, and without another word she took care of what was left of the carcass and shop vacced all the bugs.

It didn't take me long to wake up (literally and figuratively) and realize I'm not going to win Mom-of-the-Year on this one.  I abandoned my poor Erin in her hour of need.  I felt so badly about it that I went to Trader Joe's and bought her chocolate.  While I was in the check-out line, I saw this on a box of tissues:

I'm pretty sure the designers of this tissue box did not have dead, decaying mice on their minds when they put this together, but it couldn't have been more apropos.