Scared and sentimental about bedroom mice

When you share a bedroom with mice, and it's 3:30am, you start to think you're seeing the bastards everywhere. Because you are. I just saw a goddam giant! The problem is that I'm torn between a sensation of decided unease - alright, fear - that there are little things moving around (do they wander into beds?) and a sense of gentle interest in the creatures. I miss having a cat, and mice are, in their own tiny way, the closest thing.

This little one, which is large compared to the last little one, is making trips from the side of my bed to behind the television set, every ten minutes or so.

If they didn't leave droppings and chew things, I'd leave them be.

I confess I like the idea of conditioning them psychologically. They could learn names, speed through mazes, press miniscule levers for food pellets, and so forth. But these house mice are afraid of me. I'd probably have to start with their babies.

I know, I know. Mice are pests.

But how can they be pests when they don't have exoskeletons?!