Our first full day home was miserable, because I was running on fumes! I told mom that I had even started seeing things around 3am. I told her that as I nursed Keegan in the recliner, I saw a small paw reach over the side of the arm of the recliner. It made me jump, of course, and I was scared that perhaps there was a creature of some kind under my chair. And there I sat by myself in the dark with a vulnerable newborn on my lap! In fact, when Keegan was done nursing, I just held him and tried to go to sleep holding him on my lap in the boppy pillow, because I was scared to death of what animal was sitting under my chair!
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| We may have another very expressive child in the family! |
So, as night two at home began, I had hopes that Keegan was just as exhausted as I was. Unfortunately, I was in a lot of pain in my belly, but he needed to nurse again. So I put a heating pad on my incision, covered up with a fleece blanket and a boppy pillow, and then laid him over the boppy to nurse. Unfortunately, I dozed off while he nursed. I don't know how long I was asleep, but I woke up sweating and feeling sick to my stomach. Keegan was very hot and deep in sleep. I stripped him down to cool him off, and he slept through it all! Usually he screams when we change his diaper or clothes. I was worried that perhaps the heat would hurt him, and I think that is the reason he woke up an hour later, angry and ravenous. He started to nurse over and over and over, all night. I worried that two nights in a row of this might be the beginning of our miserable lives. It is so strange to love someone so much, but to want to walk away from him because he is so needy.
After nursing at least every 2 hours most of the night, Keegan vomited everywhere! It was like curdled milk, which made me cry because I knew I had made him sick from the heating pad! I even felt sick to my stomach at how hot I had allowed myself to get!
But after throwing up, he seemed more calm. He did cool down as well. So we all went to sleep, hoping that was the end of the nightmare...
When it was time to feed him again, I came into the living room, started to nurse, and then I heard a very creepy sound! There were some gift bags beside the recliner that people had brought by the hospital, and even though I had opened them at the hospital, I hadn't organized the gifts at home yet. One of the bags started moving - or more specifically, the things inside the bag started moving!
Now, remember the paw that had come over the side of my recliner the night before?! I tried to tell myself that I was just seeing things again. It was all just a lack of sleep. But it kept happening.
Before I tell you the rest of the story, I must explain to you how incredibly afraid of mice I am! When I was first living on my own after college and saw a mouse in my house, I immediately went around the entire house stacking anything and everything on top of major pieces of furniture. Then I sat on top of one of the piles for hours, paralyzed with fear about what to do. I am so afraid of mice, I can't even set a trap. I know that is even dumber, but it is true. Mouse traps' presence alone is all I need for my imagination to run wild about where mice are and how many and what they will do.
Thankfully, I married someone who isn't scared by mice in the slightest! He'll set traps and empty dead mice into an area I am ignorant of all day if he has to, and it doesn't bother him a bit! This is a God-send in my life for sure! We have only had a few mice since we were married, and each time he has handled it with ease.
So, since I was stuck in the chair next to what I was sure was a mouse-infested bag right next to my chair, I texted Kyle to come to the living room. At this point, it is 2 or 3 in the morning, and he had his phone on silent and "Do not disturb"! So I started to cry and tell Keegan that we were going to have to be brave and run and get Daddy. I sat there a few minutes, waiting for the courage to get up and walk down the hall to our bedroom... I knew I couldn't run with a newborn in my arms in the pitch black, but I was scared to go any slower!
So I took a deep breath and got up! I went as fast as I could while chanting out loud, "Just get there, just get there."
So, I woke my poor husband up and told him. He came in the living room, took the bag outside on the porch and started to take everything out of it. I was amazed, as I stood behind the screen door watching, how he took each item and shook it thoroughly. With each item, I would cringe, waiting for the thing to jump out at Kyle and run.
But it wasn't in the bag.
Then I became even more horrified. If it wasn't still in that bag, that meant it was in the house - anywhere in the house.
I reluctantly went back to the recliner to finish nursing Keegan while Kyle started going through things to make sure there wasn't any food from our hospital snacks in the bags.
And then, it happened. Even just typing it makes my hair stand up on my arms and neck! The mouse popped up out of another gift bag and sat, perched on the edge of the bag AND LOOKED RIGHT AT ME! We made eye-contact, and I TOTALLY FREAKED OUT! Thankfully, Kyle was still in the room, so I didn't have to go get him this time. Again, he came over and shook things, opened things, and the mouse was no where to be found. At this point, I was worried that Kyle was going to think I had lost my mind! Three times I had seen something in the middle of the night, and all three times no one else found or saw anything.
Kyle started setting traps over by the wall next to my recliner and the gift bags. I took the baby to our room to put him down to sleep. He looked so small, sweet, and innocent sleeping in his bed... I didn't know if I could let him sleep alone, but Kyle and I have a strict no co-sleeping policy. But, of course, as a mother, I also have a "don't let my child be chewed on my animals" policy.
Kyle came in, and we both laid down in bed, while Keegan was across the room in his bed. I knew he would be fine, but again, my brain would not let me rest in what I knew to be true. I got the courage to ask Kyle the question that I knew the answer to, but I needed someone calm and strong to reassure me of that answer...
"Is he going to be okay?" and as I said the words out loud, I burst into tears. Like sobs. Like my body is shaking as I cry huge tears that keep interrupting what I am trying to say, "I - am - just - so - scared - the - mouse - will - get - in - his - bed".
Kyle was so loving and patient with my insanity. He just held me and said over and over, "He's going to alright. The mouse has no interest in the baby or his bed. It is going to be okay." He held me until I calmed down, and then he kissed me and rolled over to go to sleep.
I laid there in the dark, more calm and sure that everything was going to be okay. But I kept praying that I would hear a trap go off. I waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, about an hour later, I heard the loud snap of a mouse-trap I had been waiting for! And it is amazing how quickly I fell asleep after that!
Everyone was fed, asleep, and now safe.
The next time Keegan woke up to eat, I told Kyle that the trap had gone off. He came in the living room before me and emptied it. Then he went back to bed.
I was on cloud 9 then! I didn't care that I had hardly slept in 2 days! My baby was safe again!
Of course, then I had to track in my mind how a mouse got into our house in the first place! I figured it must have come in with all the boxes we had brought in from our outside shed a day or two before the hospital, looking for all our baby things we had kept from when Emersyn was a baby. I was relieved to realize that it got in from carrying in outside storage, and now it was dead!
Take that, mouse
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