Dear Care and Feeding: My son and his cousin were experimenting with physics and accidentally lost the family pet mouse.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

Last weekend, I was over at my sister-in-law’s place with my 5-year-old son, “Liam,” when a small tragedy occurred. Liam and his cousin “Mia” (also 5) were playing with some helium-filled balloons they got from a neighbor. The kids came up with the idea that it would be fun to string some balloons through the rim of a paper cup and make a little hot air balloon. Then they thought that it would be the perfect size for “Stuart,” Mia’s older brother’s pet mouse. Caleb was out, Stuart was retrieved, and the experiment commenced in the backyard.

Unfortunately, it worked too well. Stuart took off into the wild blue yonder, never to be seen again. We found