I love the passing of time

Since then, she’s carried all but one of them into the exercise wheel. The other one is just outside the wheel, in the food dish. Yoshimi is up in the tower, leaving them all alone.

Not sure what she’s doing with them in the wheel. Hope she’s not eating them. It’s got blue colored plastic, so it’s hard to see. I do see some of them under her, alive. On the advice of many websites, once I took the time to read them, I should have left the two alone that were not near her. Also, it suggested high-protein food for mom, so I put some bread soaked in soy milk onto a tiny plastic lid & put it in the cage with her. She reached out of the wheel & pulled it closer to her. Is eating it. I hope the snack distracts her from eating her babies. I also hope she gets enough rest & energy to bring the other one in there with her.

I taped the exercise wheel, so that it doesn’t move. Hope that was the right thing to do. Have told the kids all about the potential to eat her young. Why she might do it. How it’s weird but natural. They both appreciate now, too, that we need to keep it quiet by the cage & keep her feeling safe.

Keep on hoping that they all survive

Got home from work today, picked up a bit, said goodnight to Jim, then my niece came to pick up her son who stays with us on Mondays. She had bought a new car, today & I went out to look at it. While I was out looking at it, Jim came out & said that the kids woke him to tell him that there were baby hamsters in the cage!

Hamtaro II, apparently, was pregnant when we got her. That must be why she was biting us when we’d pick her up.

There was 1 baby up in the tower & one in the treat dish. Hamtaro II was at the bottom of the tower tube. I put my hand in & she stood up to sniff me. There were, obviously, baby hamsters nursing down there.

I was worried about the ‘abandoned’ babies, so I picked them up (using a plastic bag as a glove, so she wouldn’t freak out if they smelled like me) & put them by her. She got up to get a treat & I put those two down in with the rest of the litter. I hope they thrive. I hope she was just too tired to carry them down by the others. She’s keeping them with the rest of the litter, now, so I’m guessing they weren’t so bad that she wanted to just let them die.

Shelby is so damn proud of himself, right now, since he was the one that saw them first & told Daddy. Annie and Shelby are so psyched about the miracle of life. Allison’s a little freaked out by the weirdness of it all (and the squirmy baby mammal look about them).

We’re watching Yoshimi (who, I think, is a boy), but besides stealing a sunflower seed from Hamtaro II, doesn’t seem to be bothering them at all. In fact, he was up in the tower by that baby, while it was still up there & seemed to be ignoring it altogether. After moving the babies, I took Yoshimi out onto the couch & we all pet him for a bit, to give him some attention. He did a bit of nipping, which he usually doesn’t do.

OK - when I left the kids, she was sleeping on top of the whole litter. Now, they just came to tell me that she was carrying them around. She’s got 3 in the exercise wheel & 3 left behind. Not sure if she’s killing any of them or abandoning them.

Off to google.

Quick pics here:

Allison & Jim have been gone at Lollapalooza all weekend, basically just coming home to sleep.

Me & the kids had our own ‘whateverpalooza’ weekend.

I worked from home Friday, so that wasn’t much fun. But, we did get to the pool on Friday night. And, we made chocolate chip cookie bars

Saturday, Shelby said we should mix things up and go to the pool first thing in the day (instead of last, like usual). In fact, he wanted to try to get there twice in the same day, but that didn’t work out. I also mowed the lawn, cleaned up the house, cleaned the hamster & hermit crab cages. And, we made home-made soy french vanilla ice cream.

Today, we went to the zoo!

For some reason, the dolphin show made me feel overwhelmed by beautiful emotion, when the trainer was swimming in the water with the dolphins, playing with them. Shelby was fascinated. Annie said she thought that would be a good job some day. I think I was just so happy seeing someone doing something that she obviously loved to do and interacting so well with other living things. I was wiping ‘this is so beautiful’ tears from my eyes. I am a dork.

Later, the kids sat & watched a zookeeper in the play zoo talk about snakes. Afterwards, she showed them a corn snake. She asked the kids to all sit in their places & said that she would bring the snake to them, so that they could touch it. She started on the other side of the group from Annie & Shelby & I could tell they were trying really hard to sit in their places like they were asked to do. They understood the reason behind that procedure & knew that it was best for everyone there and for the snake. It got really hard for them when some of the other kids in the audience started standing up & going over to her. It got insanely hard for them when a dad who was standing on the side with his kids told them all, one at a time, to go over to the zookeeper.

But, they did it! Annie & Shelby stayed in their places (moving only to avoid being trampled by kids pushing past them to go by the zookeeper) until the zookeeper came to them.

Afterwards, I told them how proud I was of them, for respecting the zookeeper, the snake & the other people & waiting like she asked them to do. The wife of the guy who was telling his kids to cut in was, apparently, standing near me when I was telling them that. She gave me a dirty look, then went & joined her family.

:shrug:

I wonder if she’ll make any changes in what she’s teaching her kids.

Anyway… It was looking rainy this morning, so I started soup in the crock pot before we left (and left some frozen rolls rising). It ended up being a hot day, but the kids are eating the soup, anyway In solidarity, I made myself some potato soup, too. I added some cheese to my soup. It was yummy!

Al’s got her own Lollapalooza updates on her blog if you want to see what actually happened at Lollapalooza