For months now, Lily has been asking, demanding, insisting that a guinea pig make its debut as a family member on her birthday. We have been hemming and hawing, making alternate suggestions, serving up "I don't know's" and "are you sure's" like an all you can eat buffet. I can't speak for my husband, but I know that I really could not imagine that a huge hamster with sharp teeth that poops in the cage and just runs back and forth and eats salad, was going to live anywhere in my house. How would that go down? I know how this works. Mommy is left cleaning out the cage while hoping that with the gate open the poor thing does not make a break for it.
Lily's kindergarten teacher offered the solution. A letter sent home in the folder asking if anyone would so kindly take the three classroom newts and one crab off her hands for summer. I, at first, pretended I didn't see the note, hoping that dear Lily would not include in her grating love of all animals with--what is that?-- a small salamander or lizard or something? But she got the gene and was at my heels before I could even turn on them begging for the chance to take one of the newts. "Oh Mommy, you have to see them. They are so cute. You will love them." Cool, right? I sent an email request to her teacher but did warn Lily that probably all the other kids in class would want to host the little thing and that we just might not have been quick enough with our request. Oh woe is me. My levels of efficiency betray me every time. Though I thought I'd waited a good amount of time since the letter's delivery, it seems that all the other parents were much savvier than I. Our request came first. I was even offered all the newts should no one else come forward. Huh?
When I was a little older than Lily, probably 8 or 9, I stood in a pet shop window bawling over a chihuahua puppy who was as in love with me as I was with him, at least his soft, wet brown eyes and sweet face kept telling me. I begged and pleaded for this dog, offered all other gifts given to me in exchange for what I knew would be my lifelong friend. My dad wasn't having it. Probably didn't even see my tears or hear my pleading. I waited for my puppy's tiny, fuzzy face that Christmas morning and did not see him. Just a microscope, a chemistry set, and some clothes and things that WERE NOT HIM. I wanted to give my child, to the best of my ability, what she longed for. Especially as I knew it couldn't be that difficult (could it?) to take care of a lizardy thing in a box.
When the exchange was made on the playground, Lily's teacher handed me a scared little thing in some murky water with a bit of white sand at the bottom. "What do I feed it?" I asked. "What does he like?" Her response was something along the lines of "I've never fed him. He seems to like eating some worms or things in there." Oh, ok. "And what about the water? Do I need to clean this tank or put some other things in it?" She replied that she'd never cleaned the water and that I should look it up on Google. Cool.
Well anyone who knows me knows that my MO involves intense research followed by an immediate need to rectify any wrongs. It was all wrong. It was no surprise that one of these things had died before ever getting to anyone's home. The water needs to be changed almost every four days! There is a food, similar to fish food that has to be served at least every other day! The thing was climbing the walls because the dirty water was burning his poor skin like acid! The hubby generously agreed to race out to PetSmart and get all the right stuff--plastic shrubs, rocks, new sand, and food for our new pet, dubbed Newty by the ladies. When the girls awoke, they found Newty relaxing in a newt's paradise or so it seemed.
Our dear newt, renamed Baby Dragon after the classmate with the otherlive specimen chose to call his "Little Dragon," did not much care for swimming and preferred reclining on a big rock or resting in the plastic trees. Didier and I check on him every day and while Lily does seem to care for him, she also continues to ask if, for her birthday, she will rise and shine to the beady eyes and soft, rolling body of a guinea pig.
I don't know. Maybe. I'm not prepared to host a menagerie in my home but I love the looks on the girls' faces when they see these little things do interesting things. It gives them a respect for life, a curiosity, and except for cage cleaning (thank you, husband for all your efforts), I am up to the challenge. It's the new style. And it ain't a dog.
(c) 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Tight quarters
We've had guests for weeks and though there is nothing personal, I look forward to the return of my space and the spaces of the people. Lily and Virginie are this week sleeping in the bedroom with Didier and me as every occupyable space is indeed occupied. On the first, foolishly unplanned evening, I thought we might all sleep in our king-sized bed. We've surely done it many times before, but usually as a "staggering, almost six year old, after night time potty break wandering into the room" followed by "wailing three year old bolting upright alone in the bed, come and get me and let me in with you" kind of way. No, the first evening, I tucked the girls into our bed, told them that Mommy and Papa would be in shortly, and closed the door on the sleeping cherubs. When the hubby and I retired for the evening we found that those tiny people had morphed into life sized X marks that left only slits and slivers of sleeping space for the two adult sized folks. I put six pillows on the floor and fancied a mattress. When I say fancied I really mean that with no cushion or comfort whatsoever, I put my 40-something ass on the hardwood floor and tried to go to sleep. There was no success that night and my neck, back, and hip still hurt.
My friend and neighbor has since loaned us an Aero bed. I received it with delight, enthusiasm, and hope. Easy enough for a completely untech savvy person like myself to inflate, that floating paradise on the floor next to our bed looked exciting enough for the girls to declare every night Aero bed night. Yay. But that was until it was actually time to go to bed. At bedtime they were eager to jump on it to catapult themselves onto our bed (which I did not let them do, the catapulting I mean). So I let them start out in our bed and vowed silently to move them in the middle of the night. And I did, easily, then passed out in the incredibly comfortable bed in which I have slept too little.
I was thrown from the bed, actually shot to the ceiling at the shrieking three year old on the floor mattress who declared herself hungry and asked me to go make her a hot dog at 3 am. All the energy in the room woke the almost six year old who immediately climbed into our bed with her Papa. I went to the kitchen to get a bag of honey wheat pretzels, as I had no intentions of cooking a hot dog, and got onto the air mattress with the three year old with the middle night munchies. I spent another night contorted and twisted. My knee is giving out a little when I walk.
Last night I had the pleasure of both girls waking some time around 3 or 4 am and fighting over whose side it indeed was where they were snuggled in our bed, so I forced them both to get off said bed and go to the mattress. Both began to wail (awesome) so I told Lily to shut it and got down onto the mattress with her and cuddled her, laying kisses at her ear. Just as we were both drifting, Virginie slid down from the master bed onto the mattress with us. "I want to be with you, Mommy." Yay. With Lily pressed against me at the front and Virginie wedged behind me at the back, I felt as though I were sleeping in a human body cast, completely unable to take full breaths and when attempting even the slightest movement getting a mouthful of hair or a knee to the stomach. I woke at 7 am not sure I'd actually slept.
We've four more days living our lives in one room. The novelty has worn off even for the girls and though they love their guests, they long for their own bed, their own room, their own things. Sneaking into Mommy and Papa's bed is only fun when you get to do it on your own terms, not when forced to stay. We are all weary and stretched thin by our tight quarters, some of us a little too old, and some a little too young to be as flexible as we might be. While I rarely spend a full night in my own bed, often making a space in the girls' bed to cuddle up with those wiggly yummies, I look forward to even the idea of my own space again.
(c) Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind, 2012.
My friend and neighbor has since loaned us an Aero bed. I received it with delight, enthusiasm, and hope. Easy enough for a completely untech savvy person like myself to inflate, that floating paradise on the floor next to our bed looked exciting enough for the girls to declare every night Aero bed night. Yay. But that was until it was actually time to go to bed. At bedtime they were eager to jump on it to catapult themselves onto our bed (which I did not let them do, the catapulting I mean). So I let them start out in our bed and vowed silently to move them in the middle of the night. And I did, easily, then passed out in the incredibly comfortable bed in which I have slept too little.
I was thrown from the bed, actually shot to the ceiling at the shrieking three year old on the floor mattress who declared herself hungry and asked me to go make her a hot dog at 3 am. All the energy in the room woke the almost six year old who immediately climbed into our bed with her Papa. I went to the kitchen to get a bag of honey wheat pretzels, as I had no intentions of cooking a hot dog, and got onto the air mattress with the three year old with the middle night munchies. I spent another night contorted and twisted. My knee is giving out a little when I walk.
Last night I had the pleasure of both girls waking some time around 3 or 4 am and fighting over whose side it indeed was where they were snuggled in our bed, so I forced them both to get off said bed and go to the mattress. Both began to wail (awesome) so I told Lily to shut it and got down onto the mattress with her and cuddled her, laying kisses at her ear. Just as we were both drifting, Virginie slid down from the master bed onto the mattress with us. "I want to be with you, Mommy." Yay. With Lily pressed against me at the front and Virginie wedged behind me at the back, I felt as though I were sleeping in a human body cast, completely unable to take full breaths and when attempting even the slightest movement getting a mouthful of hair or a knee to the stomach. I woke at 7 am not sure I'd actually slept.
We've four more days living our lives in one room. The novelty has worn off even for the girls and though they love their guests, they long for their own bed, their own room, their own things. Sneaking into Mommy and Papa's bed is only fun when you get to do it on your own terms, not when forced to stay. We are all weary and stretched thin by our tight quarters, some of us a little too old, and some a little too young to be as flexible as we might be. While I rarely spend a full night in my own bed, often making a space in the girls' bed to cuddle up with those wiggly yummies, I look forward to even the idea of my own space again.
(c) Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind, 2012.
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