>Hamster Havoc
>”I’m glad I’m doing so much reffing at the soccer fields this Saturday,” my 12-year-old told me a few nights ago. “Because I really need the money.”
I nodded knowingly. I had heard this monologue a few times before.
“For one thing,” she continued, “I’m buying an iPod. That is very expensive! And then I’m buying a dwarf hamster, I mean if Dad will ever say yes or no. Gosh, I wish he’d just decide, because I’d like to know whether I need to be saving up.”
I started to nod some more, then abruptly stopped.
“Did you say hamster?”
“Yeah. I saw them at the pet store last week. They’re so cute and little. And I’ll take care of it. I’ll keep it in my room and stuff. And my friend Amy has one and they let it run all over the house. I mean there’s poop everywhere, but it’s so cool.”
“Uh huh,” I said shakily. I quickly turned the topic back to refereeing. Because frankly, it had been a long day and I was in no state of mind to think about a dwarf hamster pooping all over the house.
“So,” I said to Hubs before bed. “I heard you won’t say yes or no to 12 about a dwarf hamster.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think she should have one. I mean, you only have one childhood.”
At that point, my head exploded.
“No. No hamsters in her room. Not now, not ever. I am putting my foot down. Tell her I’m allergic! Tell her I have a deathly fear of rodents! I don’t care! But it is not happening! It is. Not. Happening!” I was getting verklempt. I was flapping my hands and stammering. I was thinking it might just come down to me or the hamster.
Now before you tsk tsk me and say ‘It’s only a hamster, Lucinda, get over it!’, allow me to present to you the room in which this hamster is to live.
How, I ask, could I subject a hamster to these kinds of living conditions?
Organization and neatness are 12’s weak points. Asking her to clean her room, to put her trash into a trashcan, to pick her towels up off the floor, is like asking a man to wear red nail polish to work. It ain’t gonna happen.
Of course, we have our limits. Once a week, she is forced under penalty of missing “That’s So Raven” to clean her room. This becomes a two-to-three-to-four-hour ordeal that is painful for everyone involved. And I swear that by the next day, it looks just like it did before she cleaned it.
There was a time when I nagged and I pleaded and I threatened and I cajoled, trying to get her to pick up after herself. But both of us were miserable. I don’t want to live that way. It’s just not worth it. So now, she cleans her room once a week and the rest of the time, I just close the door.
It’s harder than it sounds. I put a lot of time and effort into decorating that room and making it into a little girl’s paradise. Now, it looks like a band of monkeys lives in there. Seeing the wreck is bad enough, but adding hamster poop to it? Would seriously make me have a nervous breakdown.
I mean, I can just picture us all coming down with some weird, hamster-poop-related disease. We’d all get fevers and green sores all over our bodies. They’d quarantine the house by dropping a big plastic bag over it with a helicopter. Doctors would enter through the front door in haz mat suits. And all because I caved and allowed 12 to get a fucking dwarf hamster.
And yet, how can I say all this to a sensitive 12-year-old? I don’t know quite how to proceed without sounding like an ogre. And is there a chance (as Hubs says) that I’m overreacting? Any ideas?
Oh yeah. And did I mention they like ice cream?
>I use the “close the door” thing with my boys. Yes, I had ideas that they had enough storage and stuff to stow their things, but that doesn’t hapen and I”m sick and tired of making them keep it how I want it.It’s their room, after all.Once a week we clean it out so that we’re not breeding bad things in there and so we can find the socks, but otherwise I gave up harping on them, and am very happy about it.But wouldn’t let her keep a hamster in there. I’d deal with her to say if you want a hamster, I have to know that you’re responsible for taking care of it, and to me that means be able to FIND it if it should get out. :>
>Also, I would not let the boys keep a hamster in THEIR room, either. I hate it when I ramble and make no sense.
>I would say keep your room neat for 28 days in a row and then you can have the hamster. Maybe if she wants it bad enough she will keep at it then in 28 days it should be a habit to pick up her stuff since she is used to doing it, more than likley you wont have to get a hamster if you make this offer as she would have to work real hard to get one.
>I agree with the other sage advice. Set a goal with her. Tell her that you’ll help her save up to buy it.Anytime you walk by her open bedroom door, and there’s not stuff on the floor, give her a quarter (or two, or $1, whatever)When she brings the hamster home, tell her if you EVER find any poop, the animal is GONE!Just my humble opinion. When folks ask if I have pets, I laugh and ask “Do kids count?”
>oooh…airing your daughter’s dirty laundry on the internet is probably a REALLY good way to get her to clean her room…’specially if there is a boy she likes and he “happens” to read this blog, lol!My mom did that to my sister and I. She took pictures of our messy room (dirty underwear and all) and she SHOWED THEM TO EVERYONE AT WORK. No biggie? uh…she worked at a BAR in our SMALL town…everyone, I mean EVERYONE knew about our dirty rooms. Total embarassment. I’d have to say no hamster either…
>Hubs had the “keep your room clean for two months” idea, but that’s totally not realistic to keep tabs on in this house. We have tried this method many, many times and it has never worked and the girls have ended up getting whatever it was they wanted anyway.And my big fear is that even if she kept her room clean to get the hamster, the room would immediately get dirty again once the hamster arrived and there would be disease and pestilence and, like, SARS emanating in waves from her bedroom door. Oh gol. Now I’m upset again.
>Just say NO.xoLBC
>anything that would be after my ice cream does not have a long time to stay in MY house…
>Holy literal crap!I had a hamster as a kid, and it as ALWAYS escaping. It tended to end up in our floor HVAC registers, and I caught many a hamster with some food and a lamp camped out at my own room’s register.I’m not going to tell you how many hamsters weren’t rescued. However, I don’t think any hamster is going to make it out of that room alive.
>First time poster, short time lurker 😉 Well since you vetoed the room clean deal, I dont know! LOL I would say no. If you think she is going to keep up her end of the deal and keep the room clean THEN just go back to trashing it, then NO. Oh and BTW, if she thinks its cool that her friends let their hamster run around their house, she WILL be letting the little beast loose in her room. *shudder*
>Calling any rodent a “dwarf” makes it seem so much cuter.But! Still a rodent!Start talking up the iPod, and remind her that she will need her extra reffing money for iTunes. You could price hamster food and cedar chips and a cage and all the other hamster necessities, and then tell her EXACTLY how many iTunes downloads it equals.You’re welcome.
>Oh my. I have the SAME problem with my daughter except she’s only eight. So you mean it stays this way into the 12+ years???? Lord help me. I totally agree with you and the reason for your decision. Seriously, you can’t have a hamster living in there. Unless, that is, you want to get a couple of them and film it and call it Hamster Survivior or something…that might be cool. 🙂
>Just ignore her hamster obsession. She’ll probably outgrow it in a few months. Of course, the flip side is that she’ll want a guinea pig or a rabbit instead. How about starting her out with some goldfish? Or maybe a stuffed hamster? Would that work? Looking forward to seeing how the story plays itself out!
>Fifth grade= tiny frog= dead in three weeks.
>**WARNING WARNING** hamsters are semi-nocturnal animals!!!! a friend of mine had one in high school and wanted to take it back within days as it was up and running on the squaky wheel all night and sleeping during the day.
>Tough call, Lucinda. But you and Hubs may just have to bite the bullet and say no. My son (age 11) keeps pestering me for a fish, and I remind him that he can’t take care of NON-living things and how is he supposed to have a fish without killing it within a fortnight? I will not be responsible for fishicide.
>DON’T DO IT!!! If she wants a hamster, get her a REAL hamster, but don’t get her a dwarf. I’m all about pets: right now we have a guinea pig, a budgie, a cat – and a dwarf hamster. In the past we’ve had rats, a rabbit, hamsters, gerbils – you name it. I agree with your husband: it’s good for kids. But not a dwarf hamster.Our little dwarf, the size of an adult’s thumb, which we bought for my 12-year-old daughter, is as cute as the dickens, yes, but it’s VICOUS! It BITES! It DRAWS BLOOD! We are experienced pet people, and we have not been able to tame her. (Yes, it’s a girl dwarf hamster. The little bitch.)We have never let a hamster loose in the house. Never. Not because they poop all over but because we have a cat (!), and it’s dangerous for the hamster. You don’t have a cat, but hamsters go down heat vents, they get lost. In THAT room, it’d crawl under something and get stepped on – EEEEEWWW!(Heeeyyy… this COULD be your leverage. “It wouldn’t be safe, sweet 12, to let your wee hammie loose in here. What if you STEPPED on it? So, if you can keep your floor clear for three weeks without being reminded, you can get a hamster!”)
>I really loce the scatalogical turn this blog has taken the last few days. you are the blogosphere’s billy shakes, lucinda.
>I meant “love” not “loce.”
>Running loose is a lesser evil then the smell. Imagine pissed on newspaper littering the floor, or picking it off Baby….Just say no. No, no, no, no, no!!You can’t be the evil stepmother forever, right?
>You’re absolutely right to be worried. I think a “no rodent rule” is a very good one for the house. Take it from me – a lady that just carted her daughter’s 2 guinea pigs back to Petco and begged them to take them back. Please – they stink and I hate cleaning out the damn cage!!No rodents. Do anything you have to…
>yeah, my parents lost my hamster down a vent once (I was out of town, it really was them) and found it caught in the filter right before entering the furnace… mmm, barbecue. Wouldn’t that have smelled nice? And she will have to clean its cage, speaking of smells. And buy shavings and vitamins and food on an ongoing basis, on top of the initial outlay for cage, water bottle, hamster, wheel, and consumables. Pets are not cheap. Meanwhile, I would guilt her with the dead frog. My sister still can made to squirm with a reminder of her dead zebra finches from that age.
>Ew. As much as I like looking at those furry things at pet stores…NO WAY would they be in my home.
>Yeah, I’d have a rodent running in OR outta the cage in my house–about the same time pigs start flying in flocks…
>um, probably my reason against the hamster would be the risk of the fucker getting into my ice cream…we’ve had mice (ew.) and just the whole cleaning-out-the-cage-thing has me over the small pet love forever.
>What’s the big deal? It’s just dwarf poop.Tell her to start saving for her car instead.
>First, lemme say I suspect you probably just don’t like rodents, which is fine. I get the impression it’s not actually about the state of 12’s room. Right? It’s okay. Not everyone has to like rodents. :-)My sibs and I had a hamster when we were kids, and although we were all careful with it, the little guy figured out how to pop open his Habitrail by using his bottom teeth. Occasionally it wound up in my parents’ room and my mom made us get up in the middle of the night to retrieve it (as she should have). I can also recall a few mornings when I woke up early for school and found an empty cage, then felt the little guy crawling onto my shoulder from the back of the couch. This was actually kinda fun — remember, I was only about 13. ;^)All that aside, I agree with the person who said if 12 thinks it’s cool for a hamster to run loose, she will certainly let it run loose, and there is a possibility that the hamster would get lost under an item of clothing and get stepped on. In this case, denying 12 a hamster would be a safety precaution and not a punitive issue. (She may still feel she’s being punished for having a messy room.) I also kinda think your beagle would go a little nuts if a hamster got out, and such an event might not end happily. Again, a safety issue. But if 12 wants a small pet to take care of, why not try redirecting her to hermit crabs or a lizard? They smell better and they’re fun, and if they get out and die somewhere, they won’t stink up the place.If all else fails, I do like the idea of pointing out to 12 how many iTunes she can get for her reffing money. ;^)Oh, and maybe you could start 12 on a kid version of Flylady? It might be overwhelming for her to clean her room all at once…?http://www.flylady.net/
>No rodents in the house.And no pets at all in a room that looks like that.I had a room that looked like that as a kid…
>Not so fond of those little things. But gerbils *ahem* I just love ’em.hehheh.
>forget it.. he’d be lost in an hour! LOL.. good luck!!
>Amazing! My stepdaughter’s room looks just like that. I would tell her if she can manage to keep her room in a condition that you can both agree on (something tangible, like all clothes in drawers or a dirty clothes hamper, papers on desk, books on shelves, etc.) for a month, you’ll re-evaluate the hamster idea. But with her room the way it is, you’re not comfortable with the hygiene of it. Of course, this is all easier said than done. Like everything with tween stepdaughters. Sigh.
>oh my gosh – NO! they stink!!!right?ew.
>Okay, you guys have given me some really good ammunition.1) They’re nocturnal. Lots of night noise. 12 has trouble sleeping as it it. She would not do well with this kind of intrusion.2) They are escape artists. ‘Nough said.3) They are expensive. Beyond the cage and the food and the vitamins and the stuff on the bottom of the cage, you’ve gotta keep buying that stuff.4) I’m probably going to try to get pregnant again soon and I really don’t want a Siberia-imported rodent in the house while I’m pregnant/ have a newborn.5) They stink. Yep. That pretty much does it.Thank you all for your input. THe message is clear. NO (intentional) rodents in Lucindaland!
>When my daughter’s hamster escaped into the duct work we could hear it scratching inside the wall. Of course I had no choice but to CUT THROUGH THE DRYWALL AND DUCTWORK TO RECOVER IT! Little girl guilt is a powerful motivator.
>lucinda, my little brother is the proud owner of a SIBERIAN dwarf hamster. do these things really run around in siberia?? it seems they might freeze. they are really cute, but just try to trim their nails…his is looking like a three toed sloth. “Sonic” runs on his hamster wheel all night, cause, you know, they’re nocturnal creatures. and i get to hear it.
>ok, woops, you know these things…just read all the comments. what amazes me is their ability to flatten out in any given circumstance.
>I say tell her she can have the hamster after she has saved enough money to buy it and all of the effin stuff it needs. Say yes, and then let her decide to spend the money elsewhere. That way you’re not the bad guy. My parents did this all the time… I wanted to take surfing lessons at 13, they said fine. I just had to pay for it all myself. Never happened, but I thought my parents were so cool to let me do it… Now I realize they knew I’d spend the money elsewhere.
>Chiming in late. Don’t you have a dog? I’m thinking the dog would EAT the hamster. Of course that might not be a bad thing. Just joking. We have two indoor/outdoor dogs and one fish so I’m a lover, not a hater of the animal kingdom. Hamsters I could not do, though. My mother wouldn’t let me have one as a kid and I turned out OK.
>Ewwww. I’m a prude. And will face this battle someday. Ick! GOOD LUCK!! Sounds like she just wants a clear answer one way or another. And looks like you’ve got one! 😉
>Am I the only one who is totally excited about the idea of Pregnant Lucinda? Imagine where this blog will go then . . .
>Lucinda – just found this for you. Make 12 read it. It might be the answer to your problem. (sorry I don’t know how to create a link in comments.)http://irreverentmama.blogspot.com/2006/04/isnt-she-sweeeeet-no-you-havent.html
>Thank you for popping in: the mud was ( umm, 19 hours late. ) the husband was not happy. It was also $93 for 2 yards (?) BUT…it looks great-i think. It looks like a bunch of little graves to me: Like I am thinking Pet Semetary or Something. But ‘suppossedly’ that is the way it ‘should’ look ? What do I know?BEST!
>NO to the hamster and that is final! She sounds kind of ok with the indecision, so you can drag that on and on and on. Or you could tell her if she keeps her room clean everyday for an entire month, then she could get one. YOU KNOW THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. So then, in essence, she will have made her own decision not to have a hamster.
>i can actually still see the floor, things are two deep, so you really can’t complain. i should take pics of my daughters room, you would be in shock. my kids had pet rats (rip) and they love ice cream too. just remember, the more junk food that they eat, the sooner they will die. come on french fries!!!
>NO dwarf hamster!! NO! NO! NO!I had one when I was about 12’s age and that sonofabitch was a biter. Apparently they all are.If she HAS to get a hamster, make it a golden. They are just precious.But, either way, I’d say no hamster in that room. Damn thing would get lost, and die and make the whole house stink. Ewww.
>I’ve noticed the ‘close the door’ technique in several homes that have teenage kids. The home itself will look amazing, and then there is the room with the “keep out” signs all over it. I like it. Shakes things up a bit.But as for the hamster. I think the ice cream is the straw that broke the camel’s back.
>Tell her hamsters, particularly the dwarf variety, particularly like nibbling on i-pods and oh, what a shame that she would spend hundreds of hard-earned dollars on the i-pod of her dreams only to have it chewed to bits in two days! failing that, tell her hamsters have a tendency to lick their own butts. that should do it.
>Okay, I have 2 boys and i say to them all the time there will be NO hamsters, rats, snakes, spiders, anything like that in MY house, thankyouverymuch. We have a beagle and she is pet enough for ALL of us. She is a dork, that dog. But, I digress, NO rodents in our house. And I think you can say NO too. :)thanks for stopping by my blog BTW. You made my heart go pitter patter. 🙂 Thanks.
>My 12 year old has a guinea pig that she begged for and we ended up cleaning after it because she was allergic to him and got real bad if she cleaned his cage. We finnaly gave it away and she has not asked for anything but a dog. We have two cats and that is enough!
>Eeee! Really? You’re thinking about another Baby?(Human, that is!)Very neat!
>I think that there’s no reason why she shouldn’t get the hamster if she shows herself deserving. I even have one now. Hamsters are fun and easy animals to include in your home. Instead of letting them roam freely around the house, they can be placed in a hamster ball, and if you give them enough activity to do when you’re awake, the hamster will sleep, too, at night. Also, there’s silent wheels. Hamsters don’t smell if you take care of them right. NEVER buy cedar or pine chips. It’s bad for them. Carefresh bedding controls odors and doesn’t hurt their lungs. Line the bottom of the cage with clay cat litter and baking soda, then cover it with an inch of carefresh. The cage then only needs to be cleaned once every one or two weeks. My hamster costs me about $5-8 a month. They’re the best animals to start with. Did I mention they don’t use their vocal chords? Oh, and if you buy a common sense, the hamster’s not getting out cage, then it’ll never escape. Mine never has. You need to preview cages before buying. I agree with whomever said the Siberian hamsters are a bad idea though. They only live, like a year, are easier to loose and hard to tame. GO with a Syrian hamster. Kids only live once, give her something to enjoy.
>Ha ha ha, Laura, very funny!I look forward to her turning 18 and enjoying hamsters for the next 60 or so years of her life! You can cram a lot of hamsters into that time!