JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Crackers. Ritz crackers. Bits of Ritz crackers. Bits of Ritz crackers left behind by a baby in the stroller. Yep, the stroller. That’s where our friend Mouse had found a home.

I made this discovery this morning, again while on the way to a friend’s home. I went into the garage to get the stroller. Although I had taken the stroller out earlier this week, somehow the dim light in the garage wasn’t sufficient for me to see. But this morning in the sunlight I saw there against the navy fabric, little bits of what Mouse had left behind, in exchange for cracker crumbs.

Over in the section of the garage where I usually store the strollers (we have three: one single, one double and one jogger), I found more droppings and it looks like Mouse even tried to make a little nest by nibbling on a seat belt strap on my nearly-new double stroller, a generous gift from my neighbors before Elisabeth was born.

It took me nearly an hour today to clean out the garage, sweeping and scrubbing. And to think that yesterday I let Elisabeth sit in the stroller for about an hour while we worked and played outside – ick!

Letting kids eat in the stroller is something I was reluctant to do. But I’ve been getting soft in my old age, and especially with #3 getting hungry before her big sisters do, I’ve been trying to help us all keep the same schedule. And I got sloppy about cleaning out the strollers. I stopped worrying about cracker crumbs and cleanliness. Now I’ll be keeping things a bit more tidy!

As I’ve shared about our mouse adventures with a couple neighbors, I’ve heard other stories about other mice. It seems that we are not the only ones in the neighborhood with visitors.

Our latest theory is that Mouse snuck into the garage on Sunday night while Ted was grilling the flank steak for Michaela’s party. Either that or it managed to get under the door or run inside when no one else was looking. I did find a frog in the garage last week, hiding in a pile of plastic grocery sacks. With the colder weather coming it seems that little creatures are seeking shelter. And certainly a soft bed filled with cracker crumbs would be quite enticing!

I do hope this is my last post on mice in the garage. I really don’t want to find any more animals or evidence of animals. And I really want them to find a more balanced diet than cracker crumbs 🙂 I’m sure there must be many more things that mice eat, than just leftover bits of a baby’s brunch….