Stuart Little, The Hamster

It's her 3rd pet, well 4th, if you count the fishes as two.

First there was Esther, the rabbit that her Papa got for her one Easter Sunday. Gab was barely 2 years old then and Esther got squished whenever Gab would give her a hug. The poor animal would lie in death-like stupor for about 20 seconds after one of Gab's passionate hugs. To save Esther from certain death due to asphyxiation, I passed her on to Gab's older cousin, Patricia.

The 2nd and 3rd pets were two goldfishes that Gab named Cleo and Dorothy. Cleo, named after Geppetto's pet goldfish and Dorothy, she named after Elmo's pet goldfish. Cleo lasted only a day. I believe it had something to do with our tap water which we used to replenish the water in the bowl. With tear-streaked face, Gab flushed her down the toilet. When her Papa came home he explained to her that that's how fishes go back to the ocean -- by flushing them down the toilet (and yes, that explanation was inspired by the Finding Nemo movie). When the second goldfish started to list like a sinking ship, Gab wanted to flush her down the toilet too, so she could still make it back to her family. And when Dorothy finally expired, Gab happily sent her to her swirling watery grave. Unfortunately, Gab lost all interest in owning pet fishes from that day on.

That was three months or so ago. After Dorothy and Cleo's early demise, Gab decided that pet fishes are no fun. You cannot hold them, you cannot hug them, you cannot hand-feed them and they certainly don't last very long. She then bugged me to get her a puppy -- a shih-tzu, no less. When I point to a hairless dog and ask Gab if she wanted that kind, she'd say: "No. I want a puppy with fur, with lots of fur. Like Oscar." Oscar being her generic name for shih-tzus.

Now, I owned a shih-tzu, a gift from the hubby, so I know I never want to care for that kind of furball again. Don't get me wrong. I loved Oscar. But shih-tzus are just too high-maintenance. My Oscar, by the way, died at 10 y/o just last year.

After all the bugging and the nagging from Gab to get her a puppy from Shopwise (lucky us; our favorite supermarket houses a small pet stall), I managed to convince her that owning a bunny would be much more fun. So every day when she got home from school she would ask me if that's the day we got her a bunny. I had to make up a story of how the baby bunny is still inside the mama bunny's tummy and we had to wait until she came out. She was pacified by this explanation, being keen on getting a small baby bunny, not a big bunny.

A couple of weeks later, we ended up with Stuart, the hamster. I figured a hamster would be needing just 1/8 the food, shelter, clothing... er, I mean caring of a bunny. Ah, the value of compromise. Gab is happy. I am happy. From a shih-tzu puppy that would have initially busted me 15K easy down to a baby hamster for which I shelled out 300 bucks, inclusive of shelter (a small tupperware-like container), food (sunflower seeds) and beddings (wood shavings).

And yes, she took the name "Stuart Little" from the movie. I reminded Gab once than her Stuart is a hamster, not a mouse and she said: "Yes, Mama. But he looks like a mouse." Maybe we'll go over the species rodentia with her one of these days.

Hamsters normally have a life expectancy of 3 years, the petshop owner informed me. Let's see how Gab's Stuart fares against this statistic. For now though, he looks like a happy hamster despite his being forced to take baths every now and then. Gab would carry his container up and down the stairs and the water in his drinking cup would spill, half-drowning Stuart each time. She also handfeeds him his sunflower seeds every morning. Gab's a teeny bit disappointed though that Stuart is always asleep and we have to explain to her that it's because he is nocturnal. Plus he's just a baby. Then Gab would go over the account of when she was just a baby, of how she couldn't talk and walk yet. But now that she's a big girl, she can walk, run, talk and sing; she can do so many stuff. I would nod my head and agree, in my heart the full realization of how fast indeed our little girl is growing up.