If You Hear a Mysterious Noise... Ignore It

The other day I heard what sounded like our cat swatting around one of the girls' toys on the floor.  That was what it sounded like at least.  When I went into the room, the cat wasn't there nor were there really that many toys on the floor or at least not really any small ones that I saw that were paw-swatting size.

I shuddered wondering if it was a mouse.  It has gotten really cold here and we even had big wet snowflakes falling on Thanksgiving.  What animal wouldn't want to take refuge in our nice, toasty warm house?

I hate rodents.  I get shivers down my spine just thinking about them.  I am not ashamed to admit I do not do mice.  That is my husband's job.  That is one job that he can have.  No remarks from me about spousal equality there.

Anyway, the sound had stopped when I went into the room.  I had checked out the room thoroughly and there was no sign of any living creatures in the room (besides me).  Okay,...

Call it denial.  I figured it may have been the cat who had just snuck out before I entered the room.

Then, the next day I heard it again.  It always happened when the girls were napping.  Fate telling me to get away from the computer, perhaps?

I decided to be more stealthy in my approach to check out the noise.  I needed a weapon.  You know in case it was a mouse.  I needed to be protected.

I grabbed the first thing I saw that would work in a pinch.  It was my daughter's mallet from her Parents Pound-a Ball toy that happened to be sitting next to her doll house in my husband's office. Not that I would get anywhere near enough to use it since I am a wimp.  Not to mention I could never bring myself to even hurt a mouse but if it was a mouse and it came to close I could always throw the mallet to scare it away.  Well, that was my thinking anyway.

I tiptoed into the doorway and the sound continued.  It was coming from underneath the coffee table.

You know what it was? 

Emmy's bag of Mega Bloks had torn and I had repaired it about a month ago using tape (of course) and the tape had lost its stickiness. I had tried to repair it using the same tape and just readhering it the other day when I had noticed the Mega Bloks spilling out of the bag.  Incidentally, it was the same day as the mysterious noise.. 

The mystery was solved.  I had found what was making the mysterious noise.

It was just the Mega Bloks spilling from the bag.  As I watched a few fall out, more continued to gradually spill out.  The reason it kept happening when the girl's were sleeping?  We do their before-nap clean-up before they go upstairs and that included picking up their blocks which the bag refused to hold due to my lousy tape job.  At night, they weren't falling out because the bag usually sat up against the wall which helped hold in the blocks.

I laughed at my own foolishness and then heaved a sigh of relief at the thought that no mouse had indeed taken refuge in our house (and that I wasn't going to have to whip out the Clorox and thouroughly clean every blessed toy in the room). 

Then, I was glad that the girls weren't awake to see me in all my cowardly glory.  Big bad mommy is afraid of a few measly (albeit noisy) Mega Bloks.

What would you have done if you had heard this mysterious noise?