Recently we hesitantly, tentatively, squeamishly, under much force of pleading, decided to expand our family. (Um no I'm not talking about the growing watermelon that has turned me into a small whale)
We inherited two female guinea pigs. Or as they have been most affectionately called by myself, freaky little rats.
I found myself having a conversation with Kevin a few days ago along these lines. Kevin: "hon I think the guinea pigs are hungry." Me: "really? I fed them like....oh 4 days ago." Kevin: "I think they have to eat ever day!" Me: "but they are little, they shouldn't have to eat so much!" Kevin: "Shell, you know that when the baby's born even though he's little he'll have to eat like every 2 hours right???"
I know nothing about these things except I probably should feed them more and they like to run around their cage at the most intense parts of movies and the darkest times of night.
My boys think they are the coolest! Micah will sit and hold them and pet them and talk to them and thinks its dumb that they have to have names like "sugar" and "honey" and has renamed them "Tom" and "Jerry". The other night I heard him laughing hysterically. I came out to find him crouched over the cage trying not to wet himself as he held his sides and doubled over. I asked him what in the world he was doing. He told me that if you only give them one carrot they chase each other and play tug of war with it. The squeals that were coming from them did not sound normal. Yeah I think we need to feed them more. This is now Micah's favorite feature of our new family members. That they fight!
Kyler loses interest pretty fast if they don't do something cool right away. He has discovered if you growl at them they go running to hide. They become much more interesting to him if he can catch them emptying their bowels. I am somewhat concerned about the number of times I have had to remind him that we cannot let them out of their cage to play hide and seek at will throughout the entire house, or the number of "what would happen if we put them....." questions I answer every day.
Caleb's approach to the little rodents is, "Lets see what else she'll eat!!" If it fits between those little wires, its fair game!! Legos, cd covers, cards, you name it! Recently my little explorer has discovered the amazing joy of watching things fly down the stairs. The bigger the object the faster and louder and bigger the hole in the wall at the bottom and he loves it! This particular cage is supported by wheels. The cage sits several yards away from the stairs, but that is not an obstacle for this determined experimenter. Fortunately I have always discovered the "maiden voyage" before it takes off.
These animals came to us from a very sweet family of older, calmer, quieter kids who would take the time to sit and pet and spoil them. Every once in a while I catch the "rats" looking at me, and I can't decide if its hunger or sheer terror that is staring at me through those beady little eyes. I really hope the people who entrusted us with their tender loving care never read this blog!
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