A New Friend

So yesterday morning around 6 Ingrid and I heard something scratching in the wall of our bedroom.

"Oh shit," we both thought. "Mice. Or worse. Rats."

Seems it might be even bigger than that. USA Exterminators is here right now, and it's their second visit of the day. They think it is a squirrel that crawled in through a hole on the roof. After we tried to pound on the wall to scare the critter, to no avail, we discovered a small crack in the paint in wall, near the top of the ceiling. Could it be that the critter had actually created a hole INTO OUR BEDROOM?

Yes, in fact, s/he has. USA is up there right now, setting a trap for the squirrel (They don't kill them, FYI, they take them to Prospect Park if they catch them), and closing off the hole that we found in our roof. Meanwhile we went down to the basement to check for any additional friends (Ing found two dead mice on Saturday), and Ralph, our exterminator, opened the cellar door and said, "ooooooooohhhhh. There was a dead rat at the bottom of the stairs." Not a big one. Not a small one either. Just normal sized rat. Dead. He took it out for me, free of charge. I made him a nice cup of Starbucks coffee as a thank you.

Advice to the weak: Don't ever buy a brownstone.

In other low-impact news, I've gained 20 lbs. I'm starting to feel big. And I know it's going to be a hard next 4 months for me. But feeling a lot of movement from Tiny, and feeling like she's excited to keep growing, and getting healthy and finding her way here to us, in Squirrelville, Brooklyn, NY, USA. Keep growing, Tiny! We'll try to eliminate the critters before you get here!