What Have I Done!

Well, we've done it. Mim and Zaya have officially earned their first pets. They've been working on these all summer, and today was the day. In fact, when Zaya woke up today he said, "Hey! It's Hermit Crab day!"

So, as you can guess, Zaya chose hermit crabs. Two of them, actually, because contrary to their names, hermit crabs are very social animals and get lonely. His two are named Pincers and Stalks. He's had them named for a month or so now. In the picture they are the two little red football helmets. Someone at the pet shop decided it would be funny to glue little plastic football helmets over the shells of these poor defenseless creatures. Zaya asked the lady if she had any with pretty shells and not any dumb characters on them, but they didn't, so we're hoping they'll move into new pretty shells soon.



Mim chose hamsters. (And, as you can see, an excessively feminine castle/cage) Actually, first she wanted a bunny. We said, "no". Then she wanted a tarantula. We said, "Absolutely not!" Then it was mice, which would have been fine with me, but the mice aren't tame, so you can't hold them. We moved on to hamsters and have never looked back. Mim says they're both female. Only they really know for sure, but because she thinks they're both female, their names are Goki and Luva. (Pronounced love-uh) If one of them had been a boy, it would have been named Bobo.

We chose these two particular hamsters because they were curled up so sweetly together in a cup at the pet store, so we assumed they'd get along. However, Goki has been picking on Luva ever since we got them into the castle. They must have had a falling out in their little cardboard box on the way home. They say best friends shouldn't room together. It must be true.

This is Luva. She's in her wheel.

This is Goki trying to be Steve McQueen.


So far all the animals are enjoying their new homes, and the kids are enjoying their pets. The hamsters are very active and went exploring as soon as we put them into the cage. Luva appears to be more interested in exercise, while Goki has been trying to tunnel out and pick fights with her castle-mate. I hope they're both alive come morning. And so far, Pincers and Stalks are alive. We weren't sure for at first, but after I turned Zaya's light off and left them alone for a while they came out of their shells and started exploring. They're probably just emotionally scarred from having large plastic OU helmets glued to them. I would be anyway. Especially since that's the wrong school for this family. They might at least have had the decency to put a few orange OSU crabs into the tank.