How did we get here, you might ask? It is a fair question. I have been asking it myself for the last several hours. Yet, here we are.
It all started with one. One, sweet, small, spunky, fluffy little hamster named Snow. The Christmas Hamster. The one who came first. The one who left a little boy, my little boy, completely brokenhearted.
Bash is our child who asks for one, maybe two things for his birthday and Christmas. They are always such simple requests, ones that he has put so much thought into, that we try to accommodate when possible. This year for Christmas the thing he asked for was a hamster. A real, live, hamster. Not only did he ask for a hamster, he found the exact one at the pet store that he wanted and had us photograph it so that he could take that picture to Santa and ask if it was at all possible.
I didn't want to get him a hamster. I have nothing against hamsters, exactly, but hamsters die. Hamsters are small, sometimes biting little creatures that will go belly up on you without warning, and I didn't want to do that to my child. But it was what he wanted. What he talked about for weeks leading up to finding the perfect hamster in the store. He stood there, shaking so hard that he couldn't even hold the phone steady to show the picture of "his" hamster to Santa, asking for something so simple, and I knew there was exactly no way we weren't going to end up adding four tiny feet to the family on Christmas morning.
Not wanting his specific hamster to get sold, Michael and I bought the silly little thing that very night, which is how I ended up with a fluffy grey and white hamster hiding in my office for the 10 days leading up to Christmas.
And I liked him. He had some spunk, and would run around chattering at me and playing while I wrapped presents locked away in my office. He was young, healthy, and liked apples, and I started to feel a little more confident in our decision. After all, hamsters can live 2-3 years! This guy had too much attitude to die on us. I also told myself that, even when he did die, 2-3 years from now, Bash would be okay. He loves animals and wildlife. He's my little Jack Hanna, my future Steve Erwin, but he has always taken a very philosophical view of death. Animals die. He'd had and buried two fish, fish he loved dearly, since he got his first one for Christmas 2014. He'd also been our practical little man when we lost our cats, Barkley and Tessa, in 2016. Yes, he was sad he'd tell me, but they were old and that's just what happens when we get old.
He'd be fine.
We were the first two up on Christmas morning (He'd, in fact, come in about 6 times between midnight and 5 am to ask if it was time to get up yet.), and he ran right to the table under the tree where the gift of honor sat. (Unwrapped, because I just couldn't figure out how I was going to wrap a live hamster in his cage.) As I sipped my coffee and waited for everyone else in the house to wake up my little boy sat in front of his fluffy new hamster in his shiny new cage and whispered all his hopes for the future. I knew we'd made the right decision. Knew it in my bones.
Snow the Hamster loved apples and carrots. He would stuff his cheeks full while his young master laughed in delight. He'd let his young human pet him and talk to him for hours, and he'd talk back with squeaks and chatters that no one doubted that Bash understood. He liked to run around in his plastic ball, and seemed to get an ornery sense of pleasure from chasing the dog, who was terrified of something 1/100th his size of course. He was oddly interested in Eleanor's toy Maui, and would spend hours at a time running on his wheel. He worked out, and did it with a superior air that made you feel lazy as heck in comparison, especially when he'd look through the bars at you with his dark eyes squinted judgmentally while you nibbled on that Christmas fudge.
And every night Bash would lay in bed, staring adoringly at his hamster simply doing hamster things, until he'd finally fell asleep smiling.
Snow, The Christmas Hamster, was simply the most amazing Christmas present ever.
Then, one morning in mid January, the boys came down to tell us that Snow wasn't waking up. Sure enough, when Michael and I bolted upstairs to check, there he was. Dead.
"Wake him up, Michael! Please, wake him up!" Poor Michael. He no doubt knew how unwise it would be to tell his pregnant, crying wife that he was, in fact, unable to bring a hamster back from the dead. He just looked at me, completely helpless, as I begged him to wake the hamster up, then turned to the stiff, unresponsive Snow and sniffled "Wake up! Wake up you little asshole! You have to wake up!" I'm sure you are aware, as I was at 34 years old, that neither my husband or the hamster was going to listen to me. I kept asking though, because the alternative was to go downstairs where my children were anxiously waiting for the verdict on poor Snow, and I wasn't ready to do that yet.
Snow spent one final night in my office before he was laid to rest on a breezy, beautiful day with loving, tearful words spoken over his final resting place. RIP, little Snow.
Michael and I told Bash that we were more than willing to buy him another hamster, if he wanted, to which he firmly responded that he did not want to replace Snow. My boy was not okay. He was mostly okay during the day, if a little quieter than usual, but night time was the worst. Night time was when he'd look over at the empty spot that had once been Snow's place of honor and start crying. He'd curl up in my lap and say "Mommy, I'm just so sad.", and I'd silently curse both the little grey and white hamster and my own stupidity for buying him.
It got better though, as these things always do, but there was still no interest in getting another hamster until earlier this week when, while sitting with me in my office one day, Bash looked at the place we'd stashed the now empty cage and told me that "maybe someday" he'd like to get another hamster.
"Okay, buddy. Maybe someday." I'd agreed, not knowing how fast "someday" would become "right now".
Today we walked into the pet store where, in addition to all the small animals they had for sale that our children like to look at and talk to, they had hamsters up for adoption. Yes, for an adoption fee of only $5, you too could give these poor, orphaned hamsters a forever home! These hamsters, who were born right around the time Snow would have died, were just as interested in my children as my children were in them, and it wasn't long before I had sets of red, brown, and blue eyes all looking at me pleadingly.
After all, they were up for adoption! Clearly they were orphaned! What if their mommy and daddy had died and we were the only ones who could give them a loving home?! (My oldest and youngest are good at this everyone. So good.) It was Bash though who finally, in merely a whisper, settled the matter with "I'll bet these are Snow's little brothers."
Michael and I have been together a long time. It's pretty easy for us to have fast conversations with our eyes using very little, if any, words. The conclusion we came to? We're suckers. We're also the proud new family to 3 new hamsters.
Bash picked the grey one with a white belly, because Snow was grey and white, and he's still picking the perfect name. Parker picked the reddish brown one who was dubbed "Firestar" before we even made it home. Eleanor's whitish-marbley hamster was christened "Fluffy-Pants", though we all agreed to call him "Fluffy" for short. First impressions are that Bash's hamster likes to eat. A lot. Eleanor's hamster is cautious, but curious, and Parker's hamster is going to leap first and ask questions later...All of which seem appropriate for my children. They have been pet, spoiled, and settled into their new home for the night, and the last time I checked Bash was staring adoringly at them as he fell asleep.
I also took a private moment to tell these hamsters that they were, under no circumstances, permitted to die on my children. Ever.
Keep your fingers crossed for us.
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