DIY: Operation Mice Be-Gone

So due to logistic problems I was at Kenscoff just for a day over the weekend. It was nice to have a change of scenery and get away from the screaming and chaos for a day. I met with some biological parents, as well, and it always breaks my heart every time we have a meeting. It hurts me to see that parents have to give up their biological children to an orphanage because they no longer had the financial means to raise that child. It gets even harder when they have to choose which child they have to give up when they have multiple children. Can you imagine getting harder than that? Well, I can. The fact that when a mother has twins and she can psychologically only deal with giving one of them up, but that would mean the twins would be separated. These are the decisions that the Haitian parents (most of the time, Mothers) have to make on a daily basis. That is just so hard and heart breaking to me. The meeting on Friday wasn't any easier. We were meeting a pair of biological parent whom had already separated, but they have one child together. The father wants to give the child up for adoption to give her a better future, but the mother cannot bear the fact that adoption means cutting off all contact and relinquishing her rights. She was even disturbed when the social work said, "And once you relinquish your rights, that means she is legally no longer your daughter. She will have another set of mother and father in another country." The look on her face, I will never be able to forget that. It was utter heart break. I quickly jumped in and said that she did not have to make that decision now and whether she agrees or disagrees to the adoption, it will have to be her choice. No one can influence her or make the decision for her. It is a huge decision and she can have all the time she needs to think about it and don't hesitate to ask questions. She felt slightly relieved when hearing that. I can't even start imagining what she was going through in her heart and in her mind. I will pray that she has the strength and wisdom in her decision process.

So after slightly resting a big in Kenscoff for one night, I came back to Lamardelle to find what??? Two mice in my room.....again! I was only gone for one night and they got in there.....this always happens. The kids always tells me that whenever I am gone, the mice miss me, so they always make sure to say a big hello when I am back. That is really true. The mice always likes to hide either behind or under the small love seat in the corner of my room. It never fails. I had put out a lot of Peppermint Oil on cotton balls all over my room and by my door way, but that just seemed to attracted them more. Actually they had gathered all the cotton balls and made a really comfy cotton ball bed from it. GO FIGURE! (Yeah, sorry James SB, apparently Haitian mice like Peppermint Oil!!!) I found the first one under the love seat, that was a given! She screamed, I screamed. She ran and I ran. It was the normal tango! One of the adolescent boys heard me and got in there and found the mice and killed it. He looked everywhere and said that there were only one. For me, from past experience, I knew there were never just one mouse! So I cleaned my whole room, from top to bottom, and every corner. Kicked everything, made a whole bunch of noise, and no mice were in sight. Hmmmm...I thought to myself that maybe this time there is just one. I picked up my laundry bag on the table and I heard a loud "Glop" in the bucket of mop water. There she was!!!! Another mouse!!! Found her! Oh my goodness, she was swimming around and I was going to push the bucket outside, but then she jumped, but failed and fell back again. It was quite a strange sight. The only thing that was going through my head was the image of Remy swimming in the underground sewage system in Paris from the movie Ratatouille? Strange right. So before I knew it, the mouse leaped out of the bucket of bleached water and under the love seat....oh man, here we go again. Another helper came and started searching high and low for the mouse. I was feeling so helpless, because I don't want to kill the mouse, but I am not exactly stopping others from killing it either. So finally, after a long while, the mouse ran out the door and into the hall way. I was quite happy, since he was going to escape the fate of dying, but then another adolescent boy stepped on him in the hall way. Yeap.....he's gone to heaven now, all equipped with a nice bleached body of hair.

So to make the story short. We had a DIY project for the bottom of my doorway. We measured and cut out a piece of wood to block the gap between the bottom of my door and the tiles on the floor. It was quite time consuming, but we did it!

Here is the result!

The adolescent boy who helped me make this all possible said: "Lori, now the mice would have to ask you for a key in order to enter your room!" Ha, I hope that will be true!