I can't be a mouse mommy...

Braden could not wait to play baseball with Chris today. He talked about it all day yesterday, after we saw Shayne change into his baseball uniform, and then again when we bought a baseball hat for 99 cents at Crazy 8. (99 cent hat, yay!!)

As Chris and Brady were walking down the stairs, I hear Chris stop, and say, get me a big container. Last time I heard that there was a massive spider in the basement. I get a gladware container, and come to the top of the stairs. I see Chris approaching a small black spot at the bottom... and I look closer and see a mouse.

Chris is creeping toward it, hoping not to disturb it. I watched as he got to the bottom of the steps and traps the mouse in the container. Braden is very interested in the mouse at this point. Chris brought it back upstairs, and when I saw it, I saw that it was just a baby. Very small, with eyes barely open. Chris showed the mouse to Braden, and we gave it a cracker to see if it would eat.

Braden was fascinated by the mouse. All he wanted to do was pet it, hold the container, and talk to it. I knew we couldn't keep it, but Chris still asked me to look online to see how to care for a young baby mouse. All the sites said that you have to feed it special formula, with a small dropper, every few hours. I knew that it was not practical to keep it, so the mouse just sat around for a few hours.

After Braden's nap, he got up and the first thing he asked was "Where mouse"? He ran right to the container. After talking to it for a minute or two, he said to me, "The mouse is my friend". We had explained to him earlier that we were looking for the mouse's mommy to take care of it and we couldn't keep it. He asked again, "Where mouse mommy?" and I told him again that we hadn't found the mommy yet. He said, "I find mouse mommy myself." After I told him that we couldn't find the mommy, he said, "Mommy, you be mouse mommy too". It almost made me cry. Between the "mouse friend" and him asking me to be "mouse mommy", I didn't know what to do.

Earlier, I had started to explain to him that the mouse may not wake up when he is asking it to get up. I was prepared, since it was just a baby, for it to die today. I didn't know how long it was without food or water. Chris decided that we should go to the pet store, to see what they think we should do, to either keep it, or have them help us.

After arriving at the pet store, Chris asks around, and we find a girl that knows about small animals. We show her the mouse we have and ask what she thinks we can do to help it. She explains that they have a few mother rats in the back that have babies, and that usually when a baby animal (mouse, hamster, etc) is not taken care of, they take it to the mother rats and they take care of the baby. So we explain to Braden that we did not find the mouse's mommy, but we found A mouse mommy that will take care of his mouse.

We walk back to the back of the store and in the back room. At first I was so nervous that Braden would be upset... Chris had him say goodbye to his "mouse friend" before we gave him up. As the girl put the mouse into the tank with the rats, Braden was watching intently as all of the other baby rats started to crawl onto the mouse, and the mouse snuggled up to the mommy rat. I was amazed that there were no tears, nothing sad from Braden, except just a "Goodbye mouse friend." The only sad thing is thinking of what becomes of rats in the pet store... but, at least he will have a better chance than dying alone in my basement.

Several times today with the mouse situation I was moved to tears. I can't believe I taught my son so much compassion in his short life. Watching him as he cared about this small animal that he just met, and listening to him talk to his "mouse friend", and even offering to share his mommy with the mouse... I just couldn't believe how sweet he was.