An Easter....Mouse?

On Easter Sunday Andrew and I walked into the nursery room in our church to get things ready and set up for the kids as usual. Our nursery leader was out of town that week, so we were in charge. We opened up the cupboard that held our snacks and supplies. The paper towels we had sitting on top of the bin with the snacks were strangely shredded...Then we noticed inside that bin the pack of saltine crackers we had in there was gnawed off on one of the corners. The little bag of mini candy bars had been chewed into and some of the candy bars--still in their wrappings--had been chewed into as well. We had an open box of cheez-its with a sealed bag...now there was a hole at the bottom with obviously nibbled on cheez-its. Then, the dead give-away....mouse droppings all over the bottom of that same bin that our snacks had been in. Finally, I saw something moving on one of the bottom shelves in the cupboard quickly moving to the shelves above it. Then on the very shelf where we had moved the snack bin from, out came a mouse. That's right, we had a mouse visiting our nursery that day. It stayed up on that shelf for about a minute, I think trying to figure out where it's new home had disappeared to. Then it crawled down behind the books we had in there and I didn't see it again. Now to Devin and Emily, this means nothing I'm sure, in light of their fun experiences with mice all over their house. (Just another reason Africa would not be the place for me! :) ) But for the parents of some of our nursery kids, it was just too much to handle. We tried to keep the whole thing quiet, knowing how some of the parents would overreact to this knowledge. But when Andrew went and got some of the men in the ward to help get rid of it, news spread quickly. Apparently it was the talk of Relief Society that day. Some of the parents took their kids home, while others would not let them back in the room we adjacent to where the mouse was, even with the curtain closed. I ended up taking the kids for a walk around the halls of the church with the help of some of the parents, then in to play in another room with some toys brought from home by the helper we had in there with us that day. Andrew stayed with the five men in the nursery room that had all come to try to catch the mouse. None of them ever saw the mouse, and the traps we left in there after church were empty this past Sunday. So no one knows what happened to our quiet little church mouse. Unfortunately I was not in a state of mind to take pictures as proof of this whole experience. But, needless to say, it was an interesting day in nursery that I hope we never get to repeat!