Titan Retreat

The guys stayed at the Mains’ mansion, hiked up Mt. Timpanogas, and rode their bikes down Alpine.

Love You, Bella.

Bella, our hamster, started to get a lump on one side of her head, just under her eye, followed by some gunk and grossness on that eye.  So next thing I knew, my kids were begging me to take her to the vet.  The kids were very worried about her and was scared she would die, if we didn’t get her treated.

The kids were nervous and waiting to hear the news of what was wrong and hoping it wasn’t anything serious.  Well, the doctor started “code” talk with me, while the kids were there distracted with the assistant.  Words like, terminal, tumor, pain, assistance in relieving her from pain, etc. came at me and I went right along, listening with a smile on my face, so the kids wouldn’t break down right there.  The kids just assumed all was well with her and that we’d be getting eye drops for her and she’d be all better.  They didn’t ask any questions, just made comments like, “Glad we took her in and that she’ll be better soon.”

I waited ‘til we were home to give them the sad news.  We had plans to meet up with Becky and the kids to see the new Ice Age Movie, so I knew we didn’t have much time.  I pulled into my neighborhood at an unusual slow pace, and Isaac noticed right away and said, “Mommy, what’s wrong, why are you driving so slow?”  I was not looking forward to the moment of having to see my kids’ devastated faces after telling them.

So I sat them down and told them, tears in my eyes, that Bella was in a lot of pain and that she would die anytime and that I needed to take her back to the doctors.  I explained the procedure of how they’d put her down. 

Seriously though, who’s ever heard of putting a hamster down? 

The kids all broke down in sobs and I did as well.  They all got to hold her one last time and wanted one last picture with her.

I was grateful that we were rushed from that awful sad moment to meet up with cousins at the movies.  Good to get their minds off of it all.

I took her the following day, by myself of ‘course, to have them put her down.  Let me just say, I wish I wasn’t the one to do it.  I don’t do well with death… at all.

I was dreading it the whole drive there and the whole 10 min wait I had with her in her cage on my lap.  I tried to convince my kids that leaving her body there was the thing to do, but the kids just wouldn’t have it.  They wanted to bury her in a shoebox in our backyard!  Again… I don’t do well with death.  Dead stiff animals.  (Shudder)

So here I was, saying to myself over and over again, “keep it together man.”

They left with her for another 10 min and then brought her back in the shoebox.  The lady handed it to me and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”  Which was just the right words to set me off.  I was a blubbering fool, doing the ugly cry.  “I’m so sorry and embarrassed I’m crying right now, the kids just loved her so much!”  Too which I cried even more.  They asked me if they could help me out to my car, with the box and cage, I was trying to juggle and not trip over myself while looking through blurry eyes of mine.

When I got home, I was so curious to see what she looked like.  Not a good idea.  I screamed and slammed it shut again! 

I didn’t know what to do with this box until the kids got home from school.  I certainly couldn’t put it outside in the 110 degree weather.  Eww.  So I called Mike to tell him everything and he suggested I put it in my freezer.  So I did, after I taped this thing of every hole and crevice. 

Yes, I put it in our freezer! 

Only for a couple minutes though, before I freaked about the fact that I had a dead hamster in there and took it out and set it on top of my fireplace mantle.  hahahahaha

When the kids got home, I was so glad I had taped up the box, ‘cause they all wanted to see her.  We had a family home evening lesson on death and then wrote up some goodbye letters to bury with her.  The activity and dessert was to go get ice cream and a new hamster.  I know, I’m crazy.  Did I want another hamster?  Heck no!  But I just couldn’t say no to all these sad kids.

This here is Mirida.

She turned out to be the craziest, fastest, most jittery creature ever!  None of us could even attempt to hold her like we were used to holding Bella.  The kids eventually named her Mirida because of her crazy jumps and leaps out of our hands and from the top levels of her cage.  Merida is the girl from the movie Brave.  And the kids thought this hamster was way brave. 

The picture below should have gave us a clue of this.

Isaac was a little distracted by a bird that nearly took my head off in flight.  Isaac just KNEW he could catch it.

We took a vote on which hamster to bring home.  Everyone was for the tiny brown one, we ended up getting.

…except for Dagen.  She still wasn’t over the fact that her best buddy passed away and seeing ones that looked just like her, melted her little heart.  She wanted another Bella so badly.  But… she got out voted.  Lucky, Dagen got over it pretty quickly and was excited for the new hamster.

For a couple days, the kids could not come to an agreement on a name.  We liked Teddy, Abby, and I called her Crazy.  Crazy fit her perfectly.  Look at the box she came home in.  She was peeking her little head out of it when we got home.

Here’s Dagen with Merida days later.  She was the only one who could hold her and calm her.  Everyone else, nearly dropped her trying to keep her still in their hands. 

Dagen is the hamster whisperer.

This here’s Abby Bear.  Petco has a 15 day return policy and around 10 days, we returned CRAZY, I mean Merida.

Bella Bean was the calmest ‘lil thing ever.  She’d crawl into your hand when you wanted to hold her. 

Well, because of this, we all can’t help but compare all the hamsters to Bella and none of them are anything like Bella.  We can’t move on!  hahaha  But Abby Bear is calmer than Merida and that was just going to have to do.