As some of you may know, last summer, we bought Mikie a frog ecosystem as his kindergarten graduation present. He wanted a pet, and we weren't ready to commit to a dog. Mike wanted to get fish again, and, as the person who had to clean the aquarium all the time, I was opposed to that. It isn't that I mind cleaning. If I could put the fish in a different bowl, dump everything out, scrub the scum off, and start over, fish would be fine. But, your supposed to keep the same water, and only replace 25% each time. And, removing 25% of the water required syphoning it into a bucket, since the tank was far from a sink. Inevitably, I would end up spilling some of the fishy water while transporting it around the house to a sink.
I thought a hamster was a logical choice for a pet. After all, it is fuzzy, four-legged, and a mammal, similar to a dog. Yet, it is small and easily contained like fish. And, I had fond memories of having pet hamsters as a kid. Well, minus the fact that they died pretty quickly in our house. But, even their short life expectancy worked with my plan for pet ownership. A hamster will live approximately 3 years. By that point, Mikie will be eight and Hannah will be three. Both will hopefully be potty trained, making me more willing to bring home an animal that is not.
Unfortunately, Mike has some issue with hamsters. He claims he had a pet hamster that escaped from its cage and lived in the walls of their apartment for years (given their short life expectancy, I find it unlikely). And so, pet hamster became pet frogs.
The downside of the frog aquarium is that it makes a lot of algae. More than the snail it came with could keep up with. After two snails, we upgraded to a bigger snail from PetSmart. Snaily III over ate (his shell cracked). Snaily IV lived for a while. Then, one day I realized he had been resting for about a week, and the scum was building up again. Snaily V suffered a similar fate recently. Unlike past trips to PetSmart, this time Mikie informed me that he thought we should get a hamster.And so begins our predicament. Do we get a hamster? Again, I think "yes". He has done a good job caring for the frogs, thanks to a feeding schedule from Auntie Krista. We could discuss the differences between mammals and amphibians, making it educational. This kid was born to have a hamster. After all, his imaginary friend is a mouse.
Mike remains opposed. And, no amout of cajoling (aka whining) on Mikie's part seems to help. So, I beesech our blog readers to weight in: hamster or no hamster? You decide.
Love, The Trahans
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8 comments:
Hamsters bite and their cages smell bad. And they aren't as cuddly as they appear.
I think you should get one. I had one growing up and it was great.
I vote guinea pig...it's not a hamster, therefore Mike's arguement is moot, yet still small and furry and contained.
Side note, Connor has a hamster in his classroom at daycare and the kids love it.
Mike, stop posting anonymously and go see a shrink. Are your hamster issues so out of control you would deprive your son of a pet?
I'm not a fan of hampsters. I was traumatised by a hampster incident when I was about 7. We got a pregnant hampster from the pet store, not knowing it was pregnant and. well. The rest of the story is too horrible to tell. Let's just leave it at, I'm no fan of hampsters.
Rabbits, though. Rabbits are cool. more fun than hampsters but not more work.
I had a hampster and, despite cleaning the cage religiously, it made the whole room smell like urine.
We had a pregnant hampster at one point too. Let's just say that none of the baby hampsters or even the mommy hampster survived...
Want a 4-year old miniature pinscher though?
Ha ha. We got a pregnant guppy once too. From the pet store than SWORE all the fish in the tank were the same gender. Big suprise to wake up the next morning with 20 black specs in the tank. Baby guppies. Within four days, they were all consumed by the filter or their loving mother. . .
I'm one of Scott and Christie's friends and just had to comment on this post...NO hamster! Warning- I have nothing good to say about them!! We had some growing up and now that I look back I wonder what were my parents thinking!
My brother and I each started out with a hamster. One night we were "racing" them and I accidentally knee squished PeeWee (his hamster). One emergency vet trip and a fair amount of $$ later PeeWee was fine. One day we came home and and they were dead.
We got another one though and she was an escape artist. She got out once and we didn't find her for several days. She had stored some dog food in her cheeks and eaten through some linens in the closet. She got donated to my middle school science teacher.
Just my opinion!!! :)
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