Last week we volunteered to take care of Connor's class pets while the school was on Spring Break. We had Bernard the Gerbil and Sammy the Salamander. The salamander was a little boring, as pets go, and he mostly stayed hidden under a rock. Bernard, on the other hand, was lots of fun to watch.
Bernard is an active gerbil, and he seemed to be eating, adjusting his bedding, or exploring his cage almost all the time. Whenever I caught him napping, I always looked closely to make sure he was breathing. When Connor would give him a little snack, Bernard would grab it with his cute little hands and scamper off to eat it. Noelle loved to watch Bernard - she even called him "Baapa."
About 10 years ago, Trevor had a pet gerbil named Cosmo. It was a small type of gerbil, and I was warned that it would not have a very long life expectancy. Sure enough, Cosmo died one day while Trevor was away on spring break. When he returned, we told him what happened, in the gentlest way we could,but tried not to make a big deal of it. Then one day a neighbor was over and asked Trevor where Cosmo was. Trevor said "he went to that place all gerbils go." The neighbor asked if Cosmo died, and Trevor replied "no, he just went to that place, you know, where all gerbils go." Lance & I just smiled at each other as we realized we didn't quite explain the situation completely to Trevor. We waited until the neighbor had left before we made things a little more clear.
Ahhh, fond gerbil memories...
3 comments:
I think my gerbil picture is better than Scott's humming bird picture.
You are sadly mistaken my friend. I am the Ansel Adams of pet photography.
When I taught 5th grade, we had pet guinea pigs a couple different years. I honestly think they are really gross, but the students LOVED having a pet in the class. It turns out guinea pigs have short life expectancies too-one year one died in the middle of the school day. As they were going out to recess, one student said, Mrs. Huggins? Why isn't he moving? I told them I would make sure he was okay while they were outside...meaning I called the janitor and he came and disposed of the beloved pet in the dumpster. When all the students came back in, I told them the janitor had buried him out back (I figured it was okay to lie!) and we had a little funeral for him. Girls were crying...it was very emotional! The other guinea pig we had (another year)caught a cold and I had to pay $60 to have him put to sleep. Needless to say, I'm not planning to get a guinea pig for the girls any time soon!
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