What the crap was that sound?

So we had quite an adventure at our house the past couple of days.  I love to read in bed.  It's sort of a ritual that I have to do every night or I can't sleep.  So Tuesday night, after I was done reading in bed, I turned off all the lights and was trying to fall asleep.  There are usually noises in my bedroom because our bedroom shares a wall with one of our neighbor's rooms so I can usually hear him opening drawers, that sort of thing.  So, when I first heard the noise I thought it might have been my neighbor.  But it sounded way to clear to have come through the wall.  It sounded like scratching on cardboard or paper.  So, needless to say, I was way freaked.  Brady was still up in the living room - working - so I got to the edge of the bed and prepared to make my escape.  I put one foot on the ground and with my hand I yanked open the door and ran out.

I told Brady what I heard and sent him in to investigate.  I was outside of our room standing on a step stool while he was inside with the door closed looking around.  After a few minutes I heard him jumping on the bed, then yelp, then finally yell "It's a mouse!"  He opens the bedroom door and says that it ran under my closet door.  We then proceed to get one of those big plastic tubs and slowly open the door and cover the opening with the tub.  We added towels to make it more secure.  We took out all of my shoes, one by one, trying to chase it out and into the tub so we could go set it free.  At one point, we disturbed it and it came flying at us through the air.  We screamed pretty loud!  (I think about this time Lily woke up from all the ruckus so I had to go get her.)  After that, we took every shoe out of the closet but somehow the mouse had escaped.

We locked the room up and went to Smith's for some mouse traps.  Lily really enjoyed running the aisles in her jammies.  We got home and put peanut butter on them (everyone says this works best for some reason).

Lily and I went to the couch to try to get back to sleep while Brady locked himself in the room trying to find the mouse.  All I could hear was the broom hitting the walls and periodic yelping.  He said that he saw it several times but it wouldn't run into the tub or over any of the traps.  Lily fell back asleep so I put her back in her room and Brady and I slept on the fold out couch.

The next morning, the traps were all free of mice and Brady couldn't find the mouse at all, even when we emptied our entire room out of stuff it could be hiding under/behind.  We then put the traps in every room of the house because we figured either it had left our house completely or it was still hiding out somewhere.

Flash to Wednesday night at around 2 in the morning.  Many who read my blog will know that Lily has had terrible sleep troubles and we've had to do cry-it-out to get her to sleep normally.  Well since the last couple nights she had been off her normal sleep patterns, when she woke up at 2 we decided to just let her cry a little and go back to sleep.  Unfortunately, the next morning, Brady found the mouse, with it's butt stuck to the trap from her room, just coming out into the hallway from Lily's room.  It had probably crawled 10 feet from where the trap had been in her room to make it into the hallway.  Lily had probably heard the mouse in distress and woke up to it.  I feel so horrible!!!  But, at least we know the mouse it gone now.  I feel bad that it had to die but we really did try everything to capture it so we could free it.  Anyway, that's our mouse story and I pray we don't have to deal with it again for a long time!