Of Mice and Turtles

I know you think I may not have it all together today with the title of this post. You may be right, but I will plug along.

First of all, to make a long story short, for a few months now, we have been the not so proud owners of some white mice that we acquired for a science experiment in my kid's homeschool science class. I say "some" because the number started out at 6, grew to 21, then shrunk back to 10. So, 10 was the number of white mice in our garage today. However, apparantly, they decided they no longer wanted to be roomies and somehow, for some reason, they began to eat each other. The four casualties were discovered by my very tender-hearted, eight year old daughter this afternoon. The huge blue eyes and tear streaked face as she came in from the garage gave it away, but the extent of the violent event was still unknown to me.

I innocently asked, "Honey, did one of your mice die?" Silently she shook her head, tears falling faster, and then the wail, "Ohhhh, Mama, there's blood and ohhhhh, Mama!"

Oh, indeed. Now, I don't look at dead animals if I can help it, so being the queasy mom that I am, I called my 13 year old son to take care of the problem. "Since dad's not here..." I told him. I felt kind of sorry for him, because he has a gift for compassion and a love for animals, but I did not feel sorry enough to do it myself. So, he took care of the dead mice and he put the survivors in a seperate carrier.

Then, since I am not above a bribe now and then, I said to my two youngest children, "Ok guys, here's the deal. Mama is done with these mice. They smell bad, dad didn't want them in the first place, and now they are being mean to each other, which means you can't play with them anymore. So, we are going to take them back to the pet store (this was the agreement with the man there when the experiment started)and I will buy you a fish." I thought they would be thrilled with this, but since my children are born negotiators, they glanced at each other and my four year old said, "Can I hold a fish?"

"Well, honey, no, you can't really hold a fish."

They looked at each other again and I knew I was in trouble. "We want a turtle," they said in unison.

I looked at their little tear streaked faces and I thought about the trauma that had been inflicted on them today and a few minutes later I found myself at the pet store buying turtles for everyone! "Do they stink?" I asked the pet store owner. "Not as much as those mice." he said. Well, that is comforting.

Now we are the, proud for now, owners of three turtles. Their names are "Jack Bauer," "Stripes," and "Bentley."