Monday, December 15, 2008

Introducing Paigie's New Hamsters


Paige was very patient and waited longer than the mommy-and-daddy-imposed week-long waiting period after the death of Leo to go out and replace him.  

We decided to get dwarf hamsters this time.  Leo and Buddy (our current and deceased hamsters) are Syrian hamsters and must live alone.  They will very truly battle to the death if we try to put them together in the same tank.  

Dwarf hamsters, on the other hand, like to live with a friend.  This, coupled with the fact that they are tiny and cute, made them a very easy sell to my little lady.  

So, this past Friday after school, the kids and I all piled in the car and headed out in search of the perfect tiny hamsters.  We picked the two mildest mannered ones we could find and headed home with big giant smiles on our faces (and some sneaky behind the scenes negotiations happening in the backseat ... "if you share with me, I'll share Buddy with you...").

Once we were all settled with hamsters in tanks, we moved on to the inevitable discussion of NAMES.  Paige instantly tried to go with something like Fuzzy and Fluffy.  I very gently suggested "partner" names -- perhaps Pinky & The Brain?  Salt & Pepper? and the kids went wild thinking of ideas.  Paige systematically shot down each and every idea.  Mike & Ike?  No.  Macaroni & Cheese?  No.

One of the hamsters has an unfortunately large back side the other does not.  The kids kept saying, "I want to hold Big Bottom and you hold the other guy."  So, as we were choosing names we'd say, "Call the big bottomed one Hansel and the other guy Gretel" to which she'd reply "NO."  This went on forever.  It went on for two days until we suddenly realized that we actually DID name the hamsters.

We'd like to formally introduce you to... 
Big Bottom and The Other Guy!


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