the Tailor of Gloucester {in real life}

sweet scary simpkin
The story of the Tailor of Gloucester came to life recently in our home. Simpkin was the star, of course, since Little L named her after his favorite story (even though Simpkin is a boy in the story.)

"Alack, I am undone!"

I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee to try to wake up from another sleepless night when I heard a number of little noises -

tip tap, tip tap, tip tap tip!

I didn't think anything of it, with 5 cats, 4 dogs and 3 children in our house little noises don't grab my attention, on the contrary, it's the lack of noise that needs looking into! Quiet usually means someone is up to some mischief!

tip tap, tip tap, tip tap tip!
"This is passing extraordinary!"

Then there was a scuffle followed by, "Mama!! Get Simpkin - she found a mouse and she is going to hurt it!" That got my attention. I ran over to C in the living room and she pointed to our hallway closet. Inside I found Simpkin chasing a little field mouse. I grabbed Simpkin and put her in our bedroom and then found an old container to scoop the mouse up in. It took a bit of coaxing, and a piece of a bagel to finally get the mouse safe in the container. C and I kept her in there until K was done with her shower. We knew she would not want to miss the chance to see our find.

Once K was finished and had a few minutes with the mouse, we went out back to find a safe place to release him. Simpkin meowed through the bedroom door. She knew something was amiss.

"Was it right to let loose the mouse, undoubtedly the property of Simpkin? Alack, I am undone for I no longer get any rest!"

We found a spot in the grass away from people, hawks and dogs and K set him free. As we watched him run to safety we felt a sense of relief, especially my girls, they cherish all life and seek to help any living being they can - a quality I truly love about them (they were rescuing flies out of the dogs water bowl this morning. oh boy!)We let Simpkin out of the bedroom once we came back inside. She searched for her mouse and spent the rest of the day sulking and meowing like a cat that is vexed, for she could not find it.

On another note, we made some amazing nachos over the weekend. For those of you who may not have seen them over on the FB page, I had to share here. Speaking of which, I never did mention that I finally got around to creating a FB page for Frontier Dreams last month. You can find it here. Since I seem to only find time to post here about 3 times a week lately, I enjoy posting pictures and other things on the FB page in between.

Also, thank you everyone for your comments on our sleeping troubles! I am so very grateful that you took the time to respond to my desperate plea. Thank you! You have so much advice and I plan to start using some of it this week. I'll keep you all updated with how it goes!

the Tailor of Gloucester {in real life}