Mice!!!!!

As I write this, I am checking over my shoulders and my skin is crawling.  When I was just a little pregnant with Maxie, I found some mouse droppings in our old kitchen.  It was enough to make me a little insane.  I cleaned everything out of the pantry and looked for holes to see where they were coming in.  We knew we were about to start a whole kitchen renovation and so I just thought that they would go away if there was nothing out that they could get to.  A few nights later, Ted and I were sitting on the couch watching television when I started to hear some movement in the walls.  We turned down the volume and then heard a full mouse stampede running through the wall right behind the couch.  I jumped on the couch and started screaming.  We ended up at the Home Depot that night buying a bunch of the Black and Decker Mouse plug ins that emit some sort of sound wave and make them go away.  I thought we had fixed the problem, humanely.  I didn't see the mice again until a few months before Max died.  I found some mouse droppings in our bathroom.  I opened the drawers and found them in there and in the place where I keep the towels.  Yikes, skin crawling again.  I started to wonder if they had found their way into Max's room.  Were they dancing on his changing table and in his crib while he slept?  Ay Caramba!  I thought I would lose it.  This time, I read in one of Max's baby books about peppermint oil being a natural mouse deterrent.  I ran to the market and bought some peppermint extract.  I poured it on pieces of cardboard and put them throughout the drawers in our bathroom.  Then I thought to myself, "I wonder if peppermint extract is the same as peppermint oil"...so I looked it up online and of course I found that peppermint extract attracts mice!  I ran into the bathroom to undo my botched job and opened up the towel drawer to see a mouse scurrying through my linens!  AAAAAHHHH!!!!!  NO!!!!!!!!  (skin is seriously crawling just thinking about this right now).  We set traps in the bathroom and caught a little dude.  There must have just been one because we haven't had any more mice since that guy got snapped.  Over the weekend, I was reading a book on the couch and I heard some movement behind a little book hutch that we have in our living room.  I slowly crept up to the hutch and the movement stopped.  I decided to let it go because I am too vulnerable for my greatest sworn enemies to be back again!  I can't take it!  Not a day later and Ted and I are on the same couch (we spend a lot of time on this thing as you can see) and I see a tiny little mouse crawling into the dogs' food and water bowls.  Right in front of our faces...so brazen.  No fear in the world.  I jumped up onto the couch and Ted said he would handle it.  YIKES!  I ran into the other room.  When he moved the hutch, he must have knocked the little sucker out but he didn't kill him.  He took him out of the house and dropped him across the street.  We decided he must have snuck in while Ted was doing work outside over the weekend and left the door was open.  Once again, I think the mice are gone!  I left this afternoon for a therapy appointment (so all of you Anonymous writers who accuse me of not getting help can take a deep breath....I went to therapy today) and came home and made a juice with my awesome Cuisinart Juicer (have I mentioned that both my mother in law and sister in law and two of Ted's cousins all work for Cuisinart?) machine then sat on the couch.  I turned around and saw a little mouse prancing on the countertop.  He walked over to the juicer, hung out on the cutting board where I had sliced up the fruits and vegetables, danced over to the stove top.  He really thinks he owns the joint!  So, now I am not even safe in my own home!  I need this like a luchen kup (a favorite Yiddish saying of my grandma Ann's meaning - I need this like a hole in my head.)  But, seriously, this is no bueno.  No Bueno at all.  Another one of the exciting parts of living in an equestrian neighborhood.  Can someone please explain to me why mice like horses?  Maybe this will finally get me out of the house!