R.I.P. Eggweena

The object of my oldest son's affection, a cute black fancy hamster who served for the past four months as his first pet, did something very inconvenient yesterday - she died. She was a very loved hamster, loved by all three of the kids (I have to admit, Lee and I were a little smitten with her too). How we managed to kill the poor thing in only four short months, I'll never know. I did some investigative googling last night and found out hamsters can die from noise-related STRESS. Stress because of noise? Huh, who knew? Any hamster who will manage to survive in this boisterous household will have to be made of stronger stuff.



I discovered the untimely passing when I attempted to feed the hamster right before bedtime. she was in her fluff ball, as usual....but she didn't do a back flip off her perch like she usually did when I filled her food bowl. I tapped the cage, banged the cage, cursed her name, and cryptically informed Lee by making the ol' "coup de grace" gesture and nodding to the cage. When the kids were tucked in to bed, Lee buried Eggweena in the backyard in the dark, and we started to plot the first great parental deception of our tenure. (Well, aside from Santa, Easter Bunny, and all the usual suspects.)

We considered using this opportunity to teach the kids about death, and received some very sound advice from some very wise mothers on the subject, but ultimately...we just couldn't do it. Our big boy sings songs about Eggweena, draws pictures of Eggweena, he would be devastated. My poor little man.

So today I called 3,497,086 pet stores in the area, and discovered I could not locate a female black fancy hamster in the whole freaking state. Out of desperation, I agreed to drive to a town 20 minutes away to take a look at a female hamster the pet-store-stoner-dude I talked to described as "kinda dark." Well, the hamster looks like Eggweena in the sense that they were both hamsters, but she was definitely NOT a fancy black hamster. In fact, she's brown with lighter colored patches on her, tan around her eyes and mouth, and white under her chin, and she's a porker. Ummm...yeah, not so much Eggweena-like. She also looked like an old hamster (very long yellow teeth), but the stoner-dude assured me she was very young. As I mentioned, I was desperate, so I paid $13.99 for the geriatric rodent and smuggled her in to the house.

Wouldn't you know...the kids don't notice a difference AT ALL. So the kids are fine, Eggweena II is settling in to her new home, and Lee and I are probably going straight to hell.

Lee and I will miss Eggweena the Original though, she had some personality............for a hamster.



"Eggweena" March 2008 - August 2008

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