January 10 – “Mouse in the House”

Today was coming home day.  Caleb came home from the hospital and we came home from Mansfield.  We were once again in charge of Big Brother, so we got Zak up to the hospital for the multitudinous photo opps that faced the little man.  He was a trooper as always, wearing his "Big Brother" shirt, holding Caleb in his lap, and saying everything from "cheese" to "hootenanny" to please the crazy photographers (that would be another word for grandparents).  Everything went smoothly.  Caleb weighed 4 pounds, 14 ounces (yes, he dropped a few ounces, but that is normal).  He is just a little bit bigger than his Daddy's outstretched hand.  Christi looks great, and said she felt really good as well.  DadDad was still a bit tired, but then, nobody asked about him.   We went back to the house for lunch from Spring Creek Barbeque.  Very good.  And to top it all off, we even had some entertainment.  As we sat around the table talking, all of a sudden Josh jumped to his feet and turned toward the kitchen.  He didn't say anything.  I think all his energy was going into looking calm as he sat back down.  Christi asked him what he saw, and his answer was, "Nothing that you have to be concerned about."  Well, his sudden movement concerned Zak, so Josh put him in his lap and we continued on with our conversation.  Until Josh jumped up again.  And Zak was still in his lap.  Now by this time we all knew that Josh had seen a little field mouse.  So his second explosive leap sent all of us into peals of laughter.  Josh laughed so hard he was crying.  Chris had both her feet in my lap.  Christi's Mom was trying to decide if Josh was being serious.  And Zak … well, poor Zak didn't think it was quite so funny.  Something had scared his all-powerful Daddy, and he didn't like it one little bit.  Josh and Christi were great as they said everything they could think of to reassure him.  Finally, though, Josh took him into the other room, changed both of their clothes, and effectively calmed down the little man.  Later on "we" (read here DadDad) set out three mouse traps to catch the little bugger.   We did get an update on our drive home.  One of the traps was sprung, sending the house into another dither.  Didn't catch him, though.  So Josh went to WalMart to get a few more types of traps to make sure they didn't miss next time.   Psalms 68:28 says, "Summon your power, O God; show us your strength, O God, as you have done before."   Father, thank you that we can trust you to be our all-powerful Daddy.  Amen.