The Art of Scaring Elderly Women

Miss Mouse has started being a real "squeaker" when we put her jacket on to leave places like restaurants, the mall, or church. I've been puzzled at how to handle it. Usually I just wait her out and make her stand someplace boring until she gets too totally bored and gives in. Once at a restaurant I wrestled her into her coat screaming while Daddy ran to get the car. That wasn't so fun, but at least we got out of there. Today Grammy and I were at the mall and tried the method of preparing her for leaving as soon as we got there (i.e., we got in the door and before we even got her coat off we talked about how she would get her coat on nicely when we needed to leave - she agreed that she would). It didn't seem to help a whole lot yet, though I still think it is something I'll incorporate because eventually, it will help. Anyway, last week when Daddy and I were leaving the doctor's waiting area, she started to get "squeaky". I noticed a small baby a few chairs over and told her that we could go see him if she didn't scare him by screaming. To my mild surprise, it worked really well! The rest of the day she talked about how she didn't "scare baby" and got to "watch baby". So, since the "preparation method" didn't work today at the mall, Grammy noticed a very elderly lady sitting near the door where we were struggling with Miss Mouse's coat. Grammy pointed out that Miss Mouse shouldn't scare the older lady - that isn't nice, and we don't want to scare older women. The Mouse thought about it and agreed, getting her coat on with no further fussing! I was amazed! Apparently she really doesn't want to scare people - especially babies and older women! Hey, it works for now.