Not that Mickey Mouse

Before I write this post I feel like you should have some background information since it's been so long since my last post.

• I'm 6 months pregnant
• We moved to a bigger house.
• I'm working full-time teaching.
• I'm dealing with the joys of toddler independence.

Okay, so a few days ago I had some time after work, finally, to grab some groceries. It had been a while, maybe three weeks, and we were running low on everything. After work I rushed through the store so I could make it in time to pick Ham up at a reasonable time.

He gets testy if I wait too long to get him and his dinner isn't ready right when we get home. Dealing with the demands of a toddler are hard enough, so I grabbed an already cooked rotisserie chicken that had just come out of the store's oven. It wasn't my oven, but Ham wouldn't know.

I grabbed him from daycare and listened to him tell me how to drive from the backseat thinking that an almost 3 year old is too young to become a backseat driver.

At home, I started unloading all the cold things and after a few minutes of that I noticed how it was a few minutes of complete silence. A few minutes of silence these days could mean permanent marker circles under the coffee table, the inhalation of a tube of kid's toothpaste and a call to poison control, or it could mean my walls are being sprayed with Trisemme hairspray.

I stood up and peeped over the refrigerator door.

"Go Away!" He said with the most serious, leave me alone face. In a corner of the kitchen, Ham stood perfectly still.

That's when I realized he was going number 2 on himself.

Never mind he knows how to use the potty. Never mind that he's done it a million times. But standing in the kitchen and in all of his toddler independence, he argues with me that he is going to do it in his pants.

And being the frustrated, I've worked all day, bought you this already made Rotisserie chicken, I'm 6 months pregnant and tired, I argued right back.

I  know some moms that would grab their kid, run across the house and put them on the potty, but this tired mom finally gave up and said, "Fine. Poop in your pants." (Judge me.)

In my frustration and carrying a couple of bags of spaghetti noodles I charged across the kitchen and threw open my "pasta" drawer. (Did I mention we live in an old house) And maybe I did it with such force, but the little bit of things that were in there ricocheted off the back of the drawer and flew up in the air.

I must have missed my calling as a football player because I managed to catch one of those things as it flew up in front of me.

And as I gripped the back of it and stared briefly at its coarse gray hair and long tail that's when I realized it was a.......RAT. And seconds later I screamed a scream that I never knew existed. I dropped the rat who scurried under the sink and my whole body trembled.

Across the room, Ham screamed, "What happened!!!???"

To which I screamed, "A mouse!!!!"

It wasn't a mouse, let's be honest with ourselves.

To which he screamed "Mickey Mouse???!!!"

And it certainly wasn't Mickey Mouse.

"Nooooo!!!!," I screamed.

Ham took off in the other direction. The poor thing who was in the middle of doing his business, decided I was too crazy to be around and hid in the bedroom to finish what he started.

And the rat, well all the necessary measures are being taken to eliminate him.

And me, well I don't know that I'll ever be the same.