Hamster Sex

Kylie has new pets...two to be exact. You probably guessed what they are already.

Yes, we have hamsters.

Last Monday, Kylie went over to her friend's house to play. About an hour later, she ran home and asked me if she could have a hamster. My initial thought was, "No way...how do I talk her out of this?" But she looked at me with those big, blue pleading eyes, and the Mommy Guilt set in. I instantly remembered all of the times she has begged me for a pet and I have had to turn her down. I'm not home enough to take care of a dog, and I'm allergic to cats, so there go the obvious choices. Birds are kind of boring, although they are beautiful and whatnot. So I agreed to the hamster, and Kylie ran back to her friend's house to pick out our newest addition to the family. To my surprise, a few minutes later, she came home with two little bundles of joy, complete with a cage, food, and a bag of cedar chips. What had we gotten ourselves into?

Kylie assured me that her friend's mom told her that the hamsters were both girls. She immediately found a place for them in her room, and we chose to name them Bella and Pinwheel. I know it isn't fair to pick favorites, but Pinwheel was the cutest, and Bella was somewhat of an ass. But they were fun to watch in their little cage, running on the wheel, burrowing in their cedar chips, blah blah blah. Kylie brought them downstairs to play with them a couple of nights ago. I have never seen a kid so excited about a pet. It was all fun and games until I started to carry the cage back upstairs to Kylie's room.

That's when I saw it. Were they wrestling? Fighting? Omigoodness no. They were having hamster sex, right there in front of me. I felt so dirty just watching it. I gasped, and Kylie dashed over to see what had happened. She said, "Oh mommy, I know what that is! They are doing S-E-X!" I don't know which surprised me more: the fact that Bella was presently mounting Pinwheel or the idea that my seven-year-old knows what S-E-X is. There were way too many thoughts running through my mind at that moment.

Last night, Kylie and I made the trek to PetSmart to pick out a new (pink) hamster cage for Pinwheel. We bribed my neighbor to put it together for us after staring at the (insufficient) instructions for an eternity. As we sat there and watched him assemble it, Kylie launched into a full-fledged explanation of why we needed a new cage. It went something like this:

"My hamsters were having S-E-X. They might have babies now. People have S-E-X, too, and that's how they have babi...."

Holy hell. The neighbor and I were both horrifyingly embarrassed, and he cut her off mid-sentence. Thank God. I don't know where she learned all of that. Maybe from her whore father, although I don't really think he is the best teacher of the birds and the bees. I didn't know any of it until I was in high school and my best friend felt sorry for me that my mom had never had the talk with me. I just hope there are no hamster babies. Oh gosh, I've heard they're violent and eat each other.

Kylie and I brought the new cage back home and separated the hamsters. If I'm not getting any, then they aren't going to be getting any either. We also decided that we needed to do a little bit of name-changing also; after all, Bella turned out to be a boy. Pinwheel is now named Bella, and Bella is now named Edward. Yes, we are still Team Edward around here.

And now I am the crazy lady who blogs about her hamsters.