Remembering Gobbles

This weekend our hamster, Gobbles died. It was so sad. We haven't dealt with the death of a pet in our family. It was hard. Made so much harder by regrets that you feel when you mourn the loss of someone special.

We all really loved that little guy. I remember when we first held him. He loved us and we loved him so much we had to bring him home with us that very night even though we were on our way to see Horton Hears a Who at the movies. We just couldn't bear the thought of anyone else adopting him.

He was so full of personality. It always made me laugh to see all the treasure he would collect and add to all his nests around our house every time he ran away. We loved watching him be a Houdini extraordinaire. One of my favorite times was watching him brace himself against his tube and try to push his cage door open with his hands and feet. He would walk upside down in his cage too. That always made us laugh.

He was so good with our children and all of their friends. Everyone wanted to play with gobbles and even if it meant he was awoken from a good days sleep he was such a good sport.

We loved to play with him. There were many great Lego build sessions that produced great amenities to our little hamsters usual world. Gobbles Land and the Gobbles mobile will forever set the standard in hamster history as the best of the best!

We had a funeral for him today. It was very sad. Mom, Dad and big kids all crying and poor little Kate, who doesn't know how to interpret and respond to what's going on, pretending to cry. We will all miss him very much.

Of course, the kids wanted to know right away when they would get a new hamster. No more caged animals for us for a while. They require so much more responsibility then we are obviously ready for. At least the other pets bug us for what they need. I think we will wait until we are all at a better place in our lives until we invite another hamster to be part of our family. Besides no little hamster could ever replace Gobbles!