Having animals is a great way to teach your kids about death. So begins our foray into having pets with kids. When the kids were little, I would think there is no way I’m adding to my workload by having pets and small kids. Having small kids is so. much. work. Besides our own house looked like a hamster habitat with tunnels and slides everywhere, shredded toilet paper all over the floor, etc. Don’t ask how the toilet paper got shredded all over the floor but small kids like to shred stuff – like whatever they can get their hands on. Styrofoam is definitely a favorite. Kids: “Mommy we are having so much fun! We made snow in the living room!”. Me: “Oh for the love of … “. That stuff is so hard to vacuum up – you feel like you are in a snow globe with all those pieces flying around – an angry mom snow globe. But now that they are getting older and able to take care of things a little more (in theory), I figure let’s try it.
It has definitely increased my workload or my wordload because I’m constantly having to tell the girls to feed them and water them and clean up after them but the little furry animals are so worth it. It’s hard to have a bad day when you see a little furry animal nibbling on a piece of apple – too cute. And I get to hold a little furry animal while watching a movie – instant stress reliever.
One of my daughters is pretty allergic to cats and dogs so we needed to get something non-allergy inducing. Therefore, our first foray into having pets was fish. We thought my daughter definitely can’t be allergic to fish and we were right. So, we got 5 of them and in about a month we were down to only one. I remember my daughter coming downstairs one day laughing hysterically and saying that Flashy, her favorite fish, was swimming upside down and waving Hi to the rest of her fishy friends. She was having so much fun! I was like uh oh. She was devastated when I informed her that Flashy was in fact dead. I mean, it was a full on telenovela. With three girls, there’s alot of emotions in this house.
I don’t remember being that sad when my pets died when I was little but maybe that was because we had so many. Everytime one died, it was like – eh – I have 20 others (we lived in the country). Maybe we developed that toughness over time though because, it seemed like every morning one of the cats got killed when we turned the car on because they crawled up inside the car to keep warm. It was pretty traumatic. Also, we did things differently back then. If they got sick, then my dad put them out of their misery. He was the executioner. :-/ My poor dad.
Fish were so much work though and they weren’t cute and cuddly so I thought we have to get something furry next. We decided to go with hamsters. We went to the pet store and I had my daughter take a big whiff of the hamsters to see if she was allergic. I had her inhaler and benadryl ready. All went well. No hives and no asthma.
But we did have a Saturday night live skit going on at the pet store. The sales lady really did not like hamsters and said everything she could to dissuade us. We learned from her that:
1.) Hamsters stink – like, really stink. It’s not just the cage- the rodent itself really stinks.
2.) We were worried about allergies- lo and behold, everyone in the store she used to work at was allergic to them..
3.) Hamsters bite- she wouldn’t let the kids touch them unless they are wearing heavy duty gloves. Their teeth are big.
4.) She says-how about a big rat? Those are better and more friendly too. Or a hedgehog. Or a sugar glider- we don’t sell them but they are supposedly really fun. Or a ferret. Or a guinea pig. Or anything but a hamster.
5.) I asked if they sell alot of hamsters because I was concerned it would be gone by Christmas. My daughter had a specific one she liked and it wasn’t possible to put it on layaway (😛). She said yes they sell alot but people usually bring them back after a couple of weeks.😬
So, needless to say, we bought the hamster anyway with lots of trepidation. It never bit us. It was the sweetest hamster ever. I was expecting it to turn into Godzilla any day but it never did. We named her Flynn. It did however end up dying a week later.
We kept it in the basement just in case my daughter ended up being allergic to it. And one of us left the cage open. It got out and one of my girls discovered it was missing in the morning. They were searching all over the basement for it. I was getting ready and told them I’d be down in a second. I just said in passing that it might have gone in the pipes down there or something. My daughter was like hmmm pipes and then it looked like a light bulb went off in her head.
She runs back downstairs and then after a couple of minutes I hear alot of screaming. Oh great, why’d I have to say pipes. Well, they followed all the pipes in the basement and decided that it might be in the sump pump then they decided it probably wasn’t. My other daughter looked in there and said I think it is. They ran and got their Flashlight Friends (little stuffed animals with flashlights on their bellies) and shined them into the sump pump. There was Flynn floating on the top of the water – dead. Ugh.
We gave her a proper burial the next day. I was not going to fish it out of the sump pump at the time. Though they wanted me to take her out and give her mouth to mouth – I had to assure them that she was definitely dead.
After a couple of weeks, we thought we’d get another hamster because we felt bad about the first one. We picked a hamster that looked exactly like Flynn because that’s what our daughter wanted. But he was nothing like Flynn. We called him Bryon jr because Bryon never got a namesake – we have all girls.
He absolutely never stopped going, going, going. He was not at all afraid of heights. Everytime he encountered a drop off, he just did what we would call, “easy does it”, and slowly lower himself until he dropped about 4 feet and bounced like rubber. The first time he saw a ceiling fan, he had a little hamster explosion. If you can imagine this, it’s hard to imagine, but a hamster starring in a horror movie and about to get slaughtered. That’s what he looked like. He let out a hamster scream/gurgle and raised his hands up in the air and everything. We thought he was having a seizure. He was hilarious. He ended up dying after about a year.
We also got a mouse who is super sweet and docile. She doesn’t move much – she likes to just hang out. Her cage does require more maintenance though. But she is very timid and scared of heights which is funny because she has the ability to climb more so than Bryon jr did. She is still alive and happy and sweet as ever. I highly recommend a mouse except you will have to clean the cage out more frequently. When we went to buy our mouse, that same lady at the pet store got down to my daughter’s level and looked her right in the face and said, “Are you prepared to clean that cage out twice a day?”. Lol. She apparently doesn’t like mice either. :-p You really don’t have to clean the cage out that often – maybe twice a week, but sometimes we do just once and it’s fine.
Now, we have ventured into being guinea pig owners. They are so sweet! We have 2 girl baby guinea pigs and we love them. They are pretty docile. You can just sit and hold them while you watch a movie. They aren’t as on the go as hamsters (I guess depends on the personality), but the ones we have aren’t. They get to be about the size of a half loaf of bread is what we are told so you have to have enough space for them. I imagine they will be sitting at our breakfast counter eating cereal when they get older. :-p
UPDATE: We’ve already lost a guinea pig – it died. One tip: don’t get the calm ones at the store – apparently, it means they are half dead. At least, that’s our experience. Or maybe the one we have is a a serial killer. I don’t know – but she’s better off in a cage alone regardless of what the lady at the store said. She did not like having a roommate. She kind of bullied the other one. So, use your judgement on whether to get one or two.
The reason I titled this blog post Pet Cemetery is because animals have a short life so there will be alot of death involved and everytime my kids will be like, “I would give anything to have Flynn [insert every animal name here] back. ANYTHING. I would give up EVERYTHING in this house.” And all I can envision is our poor little hamster coming back from the dead like the movie and dragging itself up the driveway and knocking on the door. I’m baaaack! Of course, we wouldn’t even hear it knocking because it’s so small. It would be waiting out there a loooong time. Then, one of us would probably just exit the front door one day and smush it so it’s not that scary but whatever. I guess that’s why they have a scary cat not a hamster in that movie. I need to watch that movie again or maybe I don’t. Creepy. And girls please don’t say you’ll give up EVERYTHING – it freaks me out! :-p