Chelsea the Hamster

We aquired a hamster this summer at a yard sale. Yes - a yard sale! It wasn't my choice but the damage was done at the 'free' sign. Two tender hearted children claimed her quickly and refused to let go. So one tender hearted mom gave in.

My daughter instantly fell in love with this rat. I have to say that because she loves to correct me "It's a HAMSTER! Stop hurting her feelings! She's NOT a rat!!" It always brings a smile to my face to see how mad she gets for someone to talk about her pet.

Being as prissy as Gracie is, it has come as quite a shock that it was she instead of Noah that claimed the ball of fur as her own. She brushes her, talks to her, feeds her, carries her around, and loves on her all the time.

She got distracted, after putting Barbie clothes on Chelsea and left her in the floor. So it wasn't a surprise when Chelsea pulled a disappearing act. We searched the house high and low and could not find the hamster. All the doors were open but mine - and that was only because the dogs and I were locked in there so they wouldn't have a nice little snack.

So we searched every room, every closet, and after an hour of searching I went back into the living room and found Gracie-Belle sitting in front of the couch with her little hands folded in front her. I said "Grace, the hamster isn't going to find itself. You need to be helping look for her." She replied "I am." as she continued to sit. So I said "And how is that looking for her?" "Well, I've looked for her everywhere and I just can't find her, so all I got left to do is just pray mom."

That puts a mother in her place, huh?

Noahs bright suggestion was to get on the internet and look up hamster.com and see if it would tell us what to do. Of course that made me laugh out loud! But then I thought, well, why not? And guess what? There IS a hamster.com! :) It said to shut off and put food in every room. Then the next day see which room it was in by the food that was missing. That way you could narrow your search.

So we filled plastic spoons with peanut butter then dipped it into her food. From there I put a ring of flour around the spoon so that we could see her footprints and maybe they would lead to her hiding spot. We left her cage in the kitchen and left her door open.

Getting Gracie to bed was a little bit tougher. She was going to hold vigil until her friend returned, but after an hour of wailing, she finally cried herself to sleep.

Seeing how it had been 2 hours since we had gotten to bed, I decided to venture out to see if there had been any nibbles on the food. Sure enough there were footprints around her cage. AND an extra spoon of peanut butter. She had carried the spoon from the living room all the way to the kitchen and tried to get it in her cage to no avail.

The best surprise of all was she had climbed in her cage, curled up and went sound asleep. I didn't leave her that way however. I picked her up and carried her into Gracie and woke her up too for the homecoming. Gracie was so excited.

And Chelsea? She just couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about!