Buzz & Woody - The sad goodbye

Been meaning to post this for several days, but a combination of being a procrastinator and just waaay to busy and preoccupied to sit and blog has kept me from updating...

You may recall that a while back we got some hamsters... Details can be found here.

Well... We got home from work on Thursday of last week to find that Woody hadn't made it through the day... Both Buzz and Woody have been looking haggard for a couple of weeks. I honestly think that our house is/was probably too cold for them to live comfortably in. We had also switched them to cedar shavings instead of pine shavings for bedding and they didn't seem to like that at all...

[ PETA DISCLAIMER : now before anyone goes and calls PETA on us for hamster cruelty, yes they were fed and watered with fresh food and water regularly, and yes I was cleaning the habitat completely out and washing the whole thing down with warm (non-soapy) water weekly... Yes, we have had pets before... and yes, I can assure you the hamsters did not die of neglect... ]

Anyway... Woody was dead when we got home, and Buzz was having a lot of difficulty moving around and didn't act like he was able to see or hear me that well when I attempted to interact with him.

I quickly moved the habitat up out of Ellie's range of vision and reach so that I could check the situation out, and after determining that Buzz was obviously not going to make it I gave him a little boost up to hamster heaven.

I fashioned a hamster coffin out of a paper towel tube (biodegradable) and after placing both deceased rodents inside, stapled the ends shut and went to have "the talk" with Ellie...

Jenn laughs at me now... I guess I was naive enough to think that Ellie would be very sad and need comforting...

I picked Ellie up and sat her down in my chair to tell her that her little pets were no longer with us and the whole process got me all choked up...

Me : "Ellie sweety, Buz and Woody got very sick and they died today"

Her: "Oh yeah?" ( At this point she did look a little sad, but I think it was b/c I was crying and she couldn't figure out why... I did my best to regain my composure... )

Me: "Aren't you sad sweety?"

Her: "I guess so."

Me: "Do you want to talk about it?"

Her: "Not really"

Me: "Do you want to go with me while I bury them?"

Her: "No Dad, can I get down and play with my princesses now?"

*sigh... Great life lesson there Dad.

So... since there was apparently no reason for me to be sitting around sniffling I took the hamsters out back and Ellie got down for some playing with princesses grief therapy...

So we are now hamster-less... Maybe we will try again after the new year... Maybe Ellie will persist in not-caring and we won't get anymore at all... Time will tell I guess.