Tiny Surprises

Backblipped on 29th July 2013

Remember Andy, who you met in September 1st's blip? And his lady wife Nico?

Well, the Wonderspouse hadn't seen Nico for a while, and he eventually discovered why - it turned out that, unbeknown to us, she'd been raising a family! By the time they moved in with us and we separated them, the deed was already done, and Nico was with children!

Neither of us knew ANYTHING about baby dwarf Chinese hamsters, so we consulted Google to find out what to do. It turned out that by not knowing, and by ignoring, we'd done exactly the right thing. By the time we knew they were there they were running around and almost opening their eyes.

Google told us that Nico might appreciate some bread and milk for extra nourishment, so we provided that, and that the babies might like to have some apple and melon for moisture while they were too small to reach the water bottle, so we provided that too.

Again, since I'm backblipping, I can update you on what eventually happened to all the babies. There were 5 of them - 3 boys and 2 girls. One girl went to a friend of a friend, is called Tia and is still doing well. One boy went to a friend of mine, is called Bob, and is still doing well. We kept the others. Sadly Lou Reed, one of the boys, died suddenly and unexpectedly when he was only around 5 months old, but his sister Keele and his brother Sandbach are still living in my study and doing very well!

You might have thought that in the midst of such a terrible year as 2012 was that the last thing we needed was a litter of baby Chinese hamsters to contend with. However, as it turned out, it really gave us a lift, having something cute and small to focus on. The friend who'd given me the hamsters in the first place was mortified and messaged me every day for about a fortnight apologising, but we really didn't mind and eventually just thought it was rather funny!