You may not fly the new hamster cage around even though it does sort of look like a space craft.

Monday, July 07, 2008 6:12:43 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

...that parenthood sucks.

After Lego the Hamster's demise, Collin decided that yes, he would like another hamster.  So we brought home Leia.  A feisty little female black and white dwarf hamster.  Yes, he named her after Princess Leia of "Star Wars" and no, I don't know if I'm spelling the name correctly.

Backstory - when Lego died, one of the kids talked about how there were bugs in the hamster's cage.  Sure enough, there were all these tiny bugs all over the cage.  We cleaned out the cage, disinfected it, went over it with the hot steam cleaner thing.  And then set that cage aside and put Leia in the small cage that we first got with the first hamster.

Fastforward to tonight.  The boys come down here with hamster in hand, talking about how she's breathing hard and has bugs.  My first thought was that they were over-exaggerating, that after Lego's demise, they're overreacting.  But as Collin handed me the hamster I realized quickly something was wrong.  She just laid there, definitely breathing heavy.

I just spent a good forty-five minutes using an old tooth brush to comb out some sort of litte buggers out of the hamster's coat.  She's not looking well.  She does have some fight in her and I've been praying that she makes it.  Yes,  I know God's dealing with war and hunger and all those bigger issues.  But three hamsters lost in five months just doesn't seem fair.  And my gut is telling me Leia won't make it through the night, though I will do my best to try to keep her going. 

Either way, I'll be calling that pet shop.  This is the second bug infested hamster we've gotten from them.  Pichu (our first hamster) was gotten at a different shop.  It just seems too much of a coincidence that both hamsters became bug infested in less than two months of getting them from that store. 

If Leia dies, Collin will be very sad.  As will Sean and Mim.  And I hate seeing my kids sad.  Especially Collin - he bottles it up, doesn't like to show his feelings.  It's hard to comfort a kid who doesn't want to be hugged. 

I'm stuffing my face with M&M's to compensate.

Sunday, July 06, 2008 10:01:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Summer has indeed arrived here.  Kids are out of school now, the temperatures have shot up, and we keep getting thunderstorms.  Not that we have anything to complain about - the worst of the storms have missed us.  We've only had a few downed branches and lost our Internet for a day. 

Last weekend was one of those interesting weekends.  Josh spent all Saturday building a pen for Lucky the Duck only for Sean to accidentally set Lucky free, who of course raced into the woods.  Sean was horrified, terrified for Lucky, and was so heartbroken, I had to promise him we would find the duck.  Amazingly, we did.  Collin spotted Lucky hiding and grabbed him.  All those years of grabbing a racing little hamster have paid off.

Right now the children are supposed to be working off the stuff I bought for them at Target yesterday.  This of course is involving lots of wandering back and forth, some drama on Miriam's part, and minor whining.  Ooo fun. 

Thursday, June 12, 2008 8:30:28 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Miriam is leaning over the duckling's container, singing the "Five Little Ducks" song.  She sings it to him daily. 

Lucky Duckling is doing well.  And after comaping baby duck pictures to baby goose pictures, we're certain he is a duck.  Thus, we don't have to change his name from Lucky Duck to Lucy Goosey. 

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 4:28:57 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

So it's Friday already.  Wow.  Fast week. 

Maura's officially five.  She had a fun birthday, loved getting to open presents that were for her, and actually getting to blow out all five candles (with some help.)  Her favorite gift has been the Wonder Pets Flyboat toy.  Miriam and Sean have been having fun with all the wooden playfood I got for Maura's kitchen...though Maura did feed some imaginary mac and cheese to a Wonder Pet.

Lucky the Duckling is still with us.  I spent an hour on Monday searching for duck food that did not come in a fifty pound bag.  I'm half Irish - buying that much duck food would ensure that he'd die the next day.  However, the feed store in the next town sold duck food by the pound.  So for eighty cents we left with a pound of duck food. 

The kids still love the duckling.  Josh and I have become mom and dad duck.  He's gotten pretty used to us to.  Oh sure, he tries to attack the Big Hand when it reaches into the cage to pick him up, but once in the Big Hand, he settles right down.  He likes napping on one of us as well. 

Of course, putting a duckling into the family mix has made for a couple interesting moments.  Like when Sean was cleaning out the duck bin, cut his finger, needed a band-aid, but meanwhile, I'm holding the duckling as the cat watches, trying to figure out what this peeping thing is, and Maura's smearing frosting on the storm door while trying to get outside. 

Yep, all normal.

Friday, May 23, 2008 7:58:51 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

what?  You don't have a duck?

Okay, we didn't mean to get a duck.  We just found it.  A little duckling in a shopping center, all by his lonesome.  We searched around for parents, thought we actually found them at one point, but no suck luck.  Josh said our choices were to leave it there and hope it made it, or take it home.

Good thing we bought Collin new sandals today and had a shoebox handy.

He has been named Lucky...you know, Lucky Duck.

Sunday, May 18, 2008 7:19:56 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Little Lego, the hamster we bought after Pichu the Hamster's disappearance, was found dead in his cage tonight.  He was loved and well cared for and will be missed.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 7:54:36 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

I bought Collin a new hamster.  Pichu has yet to resurface and we're all pretty certain he won't.  Though we don't like admitting that so I said if he does, he can always live in the spare cage.

We now have Lego, another little dwarf hamster, who seems a little calmer than Pichu.  He's only bitten Collin once and isn't always making a made dash for escape when we open the cage door.  We also have the new rule that only Collin can open the cage door - no one else can.  Lego may also come live downstairs, where I can keep a closer eye on him.  But we need a high enough space so Maura doesn't set him free like she did Pichu once.

Monday, February 25, 2008 1:24:28 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Pichu the hamster has yet to reappear.  The kids are realizing that he may never reappear.  They're taking this all in their own way.  Miriam of course gets overdramatic and sighs and talks about "What if he's dead??  I miss him!"  Sean came to the realization one night that Pichu may in fact be dead and was trying not to cry.  We talked about how for a tiny hamster, he had a long life, and he had a great life, and those count for a lot.  Collin has just been really grumpy - he internalizes stuff.

Tonight, he mentioned getting another hamster.  He said if we did get another hamster, he was going to name it Houdini.  I said no, we don't want to give it ideas.  But I do see a new little fuzzy thing in our future. 

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 1:32:45 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Yes, the hamster has escaped again.  Last night.  I haven't said this to Collin, but I'm not sure we're going to find the hamster this time around.

Then again, stranger things have happened.

But this has me on edge. I don't like the idea of a hamster crawling about freely.  The scenarios are endless.  What if the cat gets a hold of it?  Worse - what if Maura gets a hold of it?  What if it's hiding in a pile of laundry and I wash it?

All possible in this house.

Last night, I dreamt the hamster was crawling around on my bed.  Hey, you never know with these critters.

Meanwhile, I'm watching it snow again and eating Hershey kisses like they'll somehow magically cure my migraine.  They do seem to improve the grumpiness brought on by the missing hamster.

Saturday, January 26, 2008 4:55:29 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Yes boys and girls, it's time once again for "Tales of a Hamster's Great Escape"!

Okay, so this really isn't that humorous to me during the time.  Most of the time.  Last night, it really wasn't all that funny.  Especially when no one could give me a straight answer as to how long the hamster was gone.  I got a timeline of anywhere between fifteen minutes and two hours.

When a one and a half inch dwarf hamster is free in a very messy boys bedroom, there is a HUGE difference between being free for fifteen minutes and being free for two hours. BIG.

The alert was shouted - "Pichu is gone!"  I went from half-asleep on the couch to running in 2.5 seconds.  My first thought was "Oh crap, and we have that mouse trap in the boys closet." (Yes, we have mice.  I'm not thrilled.)  The boys also had that same thought because when I got into the room, Collin was holding the trap saying "Oh good, it hasn't been set off." 

PHEW!

Then we started to implement our Hamster Finding Emergency Plan.  This is to remove girls from room, post Sean on small fuzzy thing lookout, and Collin and I carefully start shifting through things while I lecture about how much easier this would be if they actually cleaned their room sometimes.

(Ironically, they DID clean their room last week...and yet somehow it ended up messier than before they cleaned it.  How can that be?)

Collin made his way through the under the bed area while I worked the perimeter of the room.  Eventually, we finished the first search of the room and realize there was no hamster in sight.  We checked in every piece of footwear that was on the floor, as last time the hamster got loose in the boys room, we found him in a boot in the closet.  But no such luck. 

Josh came home and heard the news.  He came up and joined in the search, sending Collin down to cook some pasta.  We decided at this point, the best plan was to clean up everything while we searched.  Even under the beds.  So once in a while,  a boy would exclaim "Oh look!" - making you think they found the hamster.  What they did find was a toy that had been missing. 

After a couple hours, the boys room was pretty darn clean but there still wasn't a hamster to be found.  We decide to set up a live trap, to lure the little creature, while I mutter that we just HAD to buy the DWARF hamster, Josh mutters that he hopes the cat doesn't find it first, and Miriam - always our cheery optimist - goes on and on about how "What if we never find him?  What if he's dead?"

We got the girls to bed and the boys were setting the live trap while I searched the hallway and bathroom.  Miriam came in and said she heard scratching in her closet.  I told her to go see if it was the hamsters.  She said it wasn't Pichu, she thought it was Benny, the cat.  Who was locked in our bedroom.  Josh sighed and went to assure her there was nothing in her closet. A minute later, he was yelling to bring the cage, he had the hamster!

Yes, the little fuzzy butt ventured out of the boys room, across the hall, got through the baby gate, and into the girls room.  I'm guessing the little brat was snickering at us as we searched every other room upstairs while he played in the girls room.  We got him back in his cage, no worse for wear.  Actually, I think he was a little annoyed that his freedom was snatched from him yet again.

I have decided this creature has nine lives.  And he's down to four.  But once again, this hamster has proven that prayer works.  Because boy, were we praying that we didn't uncover a furry little squished not living carcass!

Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:56:50 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]