_______I Need a Hero!

I came home from my nice weekend away to discover an unwelcome guest in our house.  I was going to tell the whole story, but it would bore you so here's the summary: we have a mouse in the house; Adel is out of town; I saw the mouse both last night and this morning but I can't seem to catch it even with the help of 10 mousetraps (probably because I jump and scream instead of trying to catch it...I'm no princess, but I sure wasn't made for this!).  Oh, and tomorrow I have a houseful of guests coming for dinner.  Ack!

So tonight, Abby's friend Madelyn comes over to play and all three kids are playing dress up.  Isaac puts on his knight helmet and shield and Abby's Dora knee pads.  He keeps coming up to me and saying in his deep "hero" voice, "Mom, do you need any help?"  Feeling sorry for myself, I get tears in my eyes and tell him, "I just need someone to catch a mouse."  He looks at me for a moment, trying to understand what's going on and I can see my reaction is too much for him.  Then he marches around the room once and comes back to ask me the same question again.  Apparently he is hoping more for make-believe bad guys that he can heroically slay with nothing other than his imagination.  A real damsel in distress and a real monster to slay (albeit a small one) are too much for him.

It makes me long for a real hero.  I need someone who will come up to me every few minutes and say, "Miss, do you need any help?"  Man, I could give him a list!  It would start with "catch a mouse" and move on from there.  Can't wait for my hero to come home tomorrow!  (Okay so Adel doesn't exactly ask how he can help on a minute-by-minute basis, but he's ready to tackle this mouse and I need a hero!)

Isaac, on the other hand, remains content protecting the two dancing princesses from imaginary bad guys.  Madelyn is enthralled with the handsome prince too.  "Help us, Isaac!" she blushes.  And off he runs to the rescue.

UPDATE: 12/13:
We finally caught it!  The mouse was, unfortunately, still at large during our dinner party Friday night.  Saturday we turned the house upside down to find it, moving every piece of furniture, sweeping little mousey  droppings, and rattling the broom behind things to scare it out.  We sealed off each room as we went along...and we never found it.  I was flabbergasted.  10 traps, uprooting all the furniture, and hunting throughout the day did nothing.  Then, as we were winding down last night with a movie, I got up for a glass of water and saw the little buggar scrambling under the dishwasher (which we had already removed from the wall to search behind).

But now we knew we had him!  We built a make-shift barricade with table pads.  The Plan: Adel would (once again) pull the dishwasher out from the cabinet.  The mouse would run out and find himself unable to run elsewhere.  I would drop a cardboard box over the scurrying mouse.  Here's how it went:
Me: I don't think I can do this.  I just know when it comes out, I'm going to freak and miss.
Adel: Are you ready?
Me: No, but go ahead.
He pulls out the dishwasher, the mouse scurries out, the barricade works, and I freak and miss.
Adel: Why did you freak out?
Me: I don't know, but I told you I was going to!
We try again, I freak and miss again, and the mouse scurries in its panic right into one of the mousetraps and gets stuck (so much for trying to remove it humanely).  Adel takes care of the poor thing while I clean up our mess.
Me: Sorry I messed up my part!
Adel: All I know is, if I were fighting a battle, you're the last person I would want on my team.
Me: It's such a good thing that my battle skills are not the reason you married me!