Yesterday I posted about the recent “pets” my kids have been keeping around here. Today, I have an update that includes our 6-year-old farm cat, the aptly named “Meow,” as well as the mouse the kids recently found.

As if my life isn’t “Little House on the Prairie”-like enough, I’m going to tell you first of all that today I went to town for supplies. (No, I didn’t go by covered wagon. It’s not that remote!) This is normally a once-a-week trip for me, 35 miles each way, and I come home with a completely loaded-down vehicle. With four growing kids, these trips typically eat up the majority of the day.

In my absence, the kids are left with a cell phone with which they can, and do, call or text me whenever they want. A typical town trip probably includes about 25-30 text messages from home. That’s fine with me. I like knowing what they’re up to and that they can contact me any time.

What I don’t like is the ceaseless, “Are you on your way home yet?” messages. As annoying as the oft-heard “Are we there yet?” that parents hear on trips, I get this message at least five times per trip, even though I insist that I will let them know when I’m on my way home.

But, in my typical manner, I digress.

So I’m in town today when a text shows up from Andie (she’s the one who texts 95% of the time). It says, “We think Meow ate Squeak. Everyone is crying except for me. It’s just a mouse.”

As bad as I feel about the three other kids’ sorrow, I laugh until I cry because I can just see the whole situation in my head: Andie, mother hen that she is, scolding the other 3 for crying over a ridiculous mouse as they all stand there, bawling. Not to mention that the names of the cat and the mouse are too hilarious for words when seen together, especially in this context.

A few minutes later, Rachel texts me, complaining that Andie is being mean and uncaring about Squeak’s departure from this world. “We’re really upset,” she writes, “and Andie’s saying he’s just a stupid mouse and we’re all tired.” (Andie’s “tired” comment is to insinuate that they all need a nap and are crying from sheer exhaustion.) At this point, all I can think is how glad I am that they can’t see or hear me because they’d be terribly insulted.

So Squeak has bitten the dust, evidently. There’s no trace of him, at any rate, which I suppose is better than the kids finding a tail or something equally horrifying and tear-inducing.

I gotta wonder though, with them being country kids and purportedly used to all this life and death stuff:

Why did it not occur to any of them that leaving a mouse in a tank out in the open where our mouse-loving cat could get right to it would lead to its untimely death?

I have a feeling the lesson has been learned.

Do you have a kid or kids who like to take in stray animals?

Tags: cat, children, country life, family, kids, mouse, parenting