We knew we needed some kind of animal (besides our good for nothing tortoise who just hangs onto life each day praying to have lettuce thrown his way occasionally) for therapeutic purposes. A dog was out due to stinking allergies, so a hamster was in. I'm not an animal person, especially one that spends his cushy life under the rodent label, but when you overhear your child whispering into the hamster's ear that they will never leave them and that they will be theirs forever...well then healing happens and darnit, the hamster is needed for some larger reason.
So, yes it has escaped, yes we've spent an hour trying to get it to crawl out from our couch, and yes little hands have squeezed it too tight and the good Lord has revived it plenty of times...his job is not done yet apparently. Peppermint is his name, any animal making his presence known on Christmas morning shall hold the title Peppermint I suppose. He is kind of cute and I pretend just fabulously that I care about it, and I clean that stinking cage occasionally too. Because all the talk and determination in the world by an 8 year old who promises to clean it...well it just doesn't work. ever. No child can clean a rodent's den like an adult can, period.
Anyways, since wearing my badge called mom, I've been known to have vicious, ugly dreams about me not being able to save my children. And when we are in a rough cycle, when life is pretty unpredictable and I'm fighting like mad to help one of my children make it through....then the dreams come...those desperate attempts to save, leaving me awake, and gasping to breath, trying to save, but unable. Well, in the past two weeks I've dreamt three times of this stinking Peppermint. I've swam deep into the waters of a public pool to save him only to have him escape my wet hands and run into on coming traffic and become, well, road kill. I've jumped high into the air to catch him while a raging party was going on in my home and the hamster was being used as a football and I tried to save him, comfort him, but I couldn't. Oh my goodness...I CANNOT try to save another "being" in my world. If this is any indication...I am, for the record, declaring I will NOT do therapy for a hamster, I will not drive it to appointments, and for goodness sake, please Lord, do not allow that rodent to enter my dreams! Who knew?
