what a difference a day makes
Yesterday was another falling apart day for Harvey. Story time ended in a surprise evacuation by the fire department, and even the excitement of a flashing fire truck did not cure the anguish of a too-short story time. Fortunately, a late afternoon nap followed by a pleasant evening and good night sleep seemed to set everything right again, and this morning Harvey was a positive delight to be around. Sunny, giggling, snuggling into my lap to read the bible, I had almost forgot this wonderful child existed. And if letting me vacuum for ten minutes wasn't enough, Harvey even asked if we could bring our new pet mousy to the woods, or as he put it, "Mouse free woods? yeah yeah?" So around 9am we all piled into the car, Harvey, Rascal, myself and our second mousey captive, headed for the fields of Carlisle.
It turns out that a better mood definitely helps this sort of expedition. Either that, or Harvey just felt more comfortable having done this once before. (He does like knowing what's going on, after all. No idea where he gets that from.) When I took him out of the car at Foss farm he walked right up to the mousey release spot and ordered the little creature "inna woods!" When the shy mouse finally obliged, Harvey positively giggled in excitement. "Mousey run away! inna woods!" Then he threw a cheerio that he had found on the floor of the car and said, "Eat da yucky cookie!" (For the record, he knows the difference between a cheerio and a cookie, but on Monday he gave the mouse a cookie that had been on the bottom of the car, so "yucky cookie" seems to be part of the formula now.)
Then the lot of us (mousey excluded of course) took a lovely walk along the path, and even though it was colder than Monday Harvey had a lovely time pointing out leaves and sticks, and Rascal had a thrilling time running around with two very excited spaniels. Harvey kept saying "puppy? nuther puppy?" and I was all, "Yes Harvey, some dogs are like puppies forever."
A few more stray pieces of poop on the counter this morning indicate that there's at least one more mouse at large. So we'll get one more opportunity to enjoy or suffer through a mouse freeing adventure. Although this last mouse seems to be more cautious than the other two... he's avoided all the traps so far. Either he's very crafty or he doesn't like peanut butter.