Most mornings, Baby Evan is awake before I am so after I get him from his room I let him play on the bath mat while I brush my teeth and rub yesterday’s mascara off my face so I can start my day looking less like something the cat dragged in (oh the irony of that expression in relation to my life). Tuesday morning I threw on some yoga pants and socks in preparation for a relaxing day at home before I scooped up my little monster and headed to the bathroom. Two seconds before I set him on the ground I noticed what I thought was some of the pink and gray yarn I had been winding and kicked it a little to clear a spot. As soon as my (thankfully sock-clad) toe touched the yarn, I realized it was not yarn at all but a DECAPITATED MOUSE CORPSE WITH IT’S ENTRAILS PULLED OUT AND SPREAD ALL OVER MY BATH MAT. Apparently, some poor little field mouse thought my house looked like a cozy place the spend these last few rainy days. Unfortunately for that mouse, my cats are excellent hunters.

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I need to interrupt myself right here to tell you a different story, a far more horrifying story in my opinion, to illustrate just how little chance that mouse had of surviving even one night in my house. I think I may have told this story before, although I mostly tell it when I’m drunk since it involves a lot of hand-flapping and shrieking, but I think you’ll get the picture in writing too.

After getting their first taste of blood hunting mice in the adorable but totally uninsulated cottage we rented our first year in Connecticut, Blushes and Rabbit are always on the lookout for opportunities to kill things. During my first month in the new house (E was stationed up in New Hampshire) I woke up one night to a weird chirping sound coming from chimney wall. I figured a bird had gotten stuck somehow and planned to investigate in the morning but totally forgot, the way you forget almost everything that happens in the middle of the night. The next night while I was sleeping, several things happened in quick succession. First I felt the cat jump up on the bed. Then I heard that weird chirping sound again. And THEN I felt disgusting, leathery wings beating against my face as the live bat my cat had somehow managed to catch tried desperately to escape. I had NO IDEA how it got inside, NO IDEA how my cat managed to catch it, and NO IDEA why she put it on my head. All I managed to do at that moment was cower under the covers and whimper, wondering if it was OK to call 911 for a bat attack. Eventually I took the whole comforter off the bed and – peeking out through a tiny hole – punched out a window screen. Then I used a broom to smack the bat until I stunned it enough to scoop it up with the dust pan and threw it out the window.  I slammed the window shut, ran out of the room and spent the rest of the night on the couch, trying to remember if bats traveled in packs or could lay eggs in your brain while you slept. I still have no idea how any of that happened, but I haven’t seen a bat  since so I’m hoping that one warned all his friends about the evil attack cats in residence.

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So I wasn’t really that shocked to find a dead mouse in my bathroom, although I can’t say it was the highlight of my day. I screamed and jumped and hid the baby’s face from the carnage until E picked it up with some tissue and threw it away. Once I got over the ew ew ew ew ewwwwwwww of having touched it with my foot I actually felt a little sorry for the poor mouse, since I know it’s death was neither fast nor painless. Rabbit, the eviler of the two cats, likes to chew off a mouse’s feet first, letting it try to hobble away before she kills it. And by kills it I mean “eats the head and leaves the rest as a little present, usually somewhere I will step on it barefoot”. So yes, I felt bad for the poor tortured mouse.

That is, until I found ANOTHER dead mouse on the bath mat this morning. Those little rodents are trying to invade my house. Get ’em kitties.

Did you know a baby could kick your ass? Apparently Mother Nature didn’t think it was enough to give human infants adorable good looks and that intoxicating baby smell to ensure their survival – she also have them ridiculous baby strength, super sharp teeth and claws.

With his ridiculous baby strength, Baby Evan can smack you in the face hard enough to make your eyes water, pinch you until you scream, and headbutt your shins leaving big ugly bruises. He also thinks it’s really funny to hold the back door shut when you’ve just run out to the car…in the snow…in your slippers to find his favorite toy of the week. Then he laughs evilly while you try to inch the door open a tiny bit at a time so you don’t knock him on his head. Because despite the ridiculous baby strength, their heads bleed A LOT when they get cracked open. Trust.

With his super sharp teeth, Baby Evan bit me on Saturday hard enough to break the skin. Through a shirt. I’m going to have a scar. FROM A BABY BITE. How’s that for the least sexy injury ever? That’s almost as embarrassing as the scar my sister has on her knee from the time she was attacked by a vicious goose.

With his claws, Baby Evan can scratch your face off, although luckily he spends most of his time trying to scratch his own face off. Just don’t try to trim them. Even when he ripped off half his toenail and smeared blood all over the house like he was auditioning for the set decorator job on Dexter he screamed at me for trying to cut the other nine nails. He’s like a badger, clawing and squirming and your only hope is to sneak up on him while he’s sleeping. And never in the history of baby care has anyone gotten a baby’s nails so even and so short that they couldn’t still scratch your cornea if threatened. BAM welcome to a total lack of depth perception.

So don’t let their cute little hands and adorable baby teeth and toddling fool you. Never turn your back on a baby.