of mice & men

We were rushing this morning. It was a no shower for mom, breakfast in the car, scramble to get people dressed and find our backpacks kind of morning. As I scurried L & A out the back door and across the driveway to the garage, they were both fascinated and horrified to discover that, just behind my car, on the floor of the garage, was a mouse. They kept creeping forward and jumping back, wanting to see it, horrified it would leap onto them and devour them. They had plenty of opportunity to do this creeping forward, jumping back bit because the mouse seemed incapable of doing anything but running around in circles to his right. His head was cocked to the right, and his body followed...round and round, helpless to stop. Like someone turned his steering wheel to the right and held the gas down to the floor. Poor kid, all he could do was gradually veer his right-turning circles toward the door of the garage, out onto the driveway, and into the yard. But this took some time. Lucy, of course, figured out that something was wrong with mr. mouse, and in one of those spur of the moment moments when you don't have time to think how to simply explain something more complex, I told her that there was something wrong with his brain that was making him run around in circles. This seemed to satisfy her.

Fast forward to after school...girls getting out of the car in the garage and walking up the driveway to the house. Lucy cocks her head to the right, begins circling the driveway, and proclaims, excitedly, "look, Mama, there's something wrong with my brain!" Not to be outdone, Annie follows suit, shreiking "my brain, my brain, mama!" They continue circling until they a. run into each other, b. fall down out of dizzyness, c. both. I laughed and thought sinisterly that, yes, there really may be something wrong with those brains.

(A mouse in my garage? I thought I moved to the city...)