G is 12 weeks old now and weighs just over 11 pounds. If Mom or Dad is busy, he has 4 older siblings to care for every need...whether it be a clean diaper, a burp, or simply a shoulder upon which to fall asleep.
He even gets daily private concerts. Here he is with M practicing the left hand part of Bach's Invention No. 4 in d minor.
G enjoys the violin also, except he doesn't get held during those concerts.
S bought an add-on for the gerbil cage and an exercise ball for Gerald when we were up in the big city yesterday.
We thought this was the safest way to introduce Gerald to The Dog since The Dog likes disposing of Gerald's distant cousins. The Dog sniffed around the ball for a bit then he tried to pounce on it.
We think it is best if Gerald's future exercise sessions take place while The Dog is outside. Gerald agrees!
I don't think this revelation is truly blogworthy, but some folks seemed rather surprised by it, so here goes. G is now wearing cloth diapers. M wore them when he was a baby whenever we were at home. J, S and A wore them occasionally, mostly when the disposable stash was getting low and it didn't look like we would be able to make it to the store.
Since the nearest place to buy diapers is over the mountain (which isn't too far except in a snow storm), I decided that G would predominantly be in cloth diapers. I'm not a glutton for punishment, so I decided to wait until now when all of our holiday travels were over. Also, since the diaper bag stays in the vehicle for the most part, we'll do disposables when we venture out.
I still have all the cloth diapers I used with M and the others, so the only thing I needed was a few covers to replace some of the ones I had. Time isn't kind to elastic. I'm also using disposable at night until we get the new covers. Our old ones aren't reliable enough for long-term use.
I ordered this product * late Tuesday afternoon. I threw in another item so I would qualify for free shipping. Wow. It was sitting on my table Wednesday evening. That is blogworthy considering where we live. I don't think we have ever had a package delivered the next day without paying massive shipping charges. It took The Man less than five minutes to install it on our toilet. 
Why didn't they have these things when M was a baby? Please don't tell me they did and I just didn't know about it. I'll cry. No more dunking diapers for me!
G hasn't complained a bit about the switch to cloth. I think they make him look like a Weeble.
*This wasn't meant to be a commercial, but I do have a code that can save you $10 off any purchase of $49 or more. E mail me for details if you're interested.
I'll go ahead and state the obvious, just to get it out of the way.
I'm crazy.
There. I said it.
S has had birthday and Christmas money burning a hole in his pocket. A few weeks ago he announced that he wanted a new pet. At the library he checked out books on hamsters and turtles. Hamsters? As in, rodents? No way. I had been there and done that.
The Man and I have been up in the middle of the night trying to catch an escaped white mouse (who had been given to M) before it found one of the mouse traps intended for wild mice who found their way inside our house. In that same house, I clubbed a stunned rat to death so it wouldn't crawl off and die in the wall. Actually paying money for a rodent to live in a house with us? That would be wrong. Very wrong. Rodents need to live outside in the fields.
Thus, I tried steering S away from the hamsters and encouraged the turtle. After all, we still had the fish aquarium where Tails and Scales lived. We did a bit of research on prices and concluded that he had enough money for the turtle, heater, and other supplies he would need. He also stated he was willing to commit to this particular pet for the next 50 years, should it live that long.
Yesterday while we were up in the city for M's music lessons we stopped at the pet supply store. It was then that we discovered that the pet supply store was actually an empty building. Poor S. He had his heart set on bringing home a turtle. I hadn't planned on making a trip up to the big city yesterday, but we went anyway.
Since G was sleeping, just S and I went into Petsmart. We found the reptiles. Eek. The cheapest turtle was $99, and the other one was $199. That was a lot more than he had available. Hmmm...the rodents were a lot cheaper. J came in at that point and said G had woken up. I went out to the van to feed G and sent M and Sacagawea in to stay with J and S and look at the rodents.
I suggested that S name his new gerbil Turtle. The kids thought that was one of the silliest things they had ever heard. S chose Gerald.
S thinks he looks like the best pet ever. Notice the soap dish in the background. I thought it was prudent for them to be acquainted in the bathroom just in case Gerald decided to try to escape.
Gerald slept at the top of the cage last night. This morning he has explored around the rest of the cage and now seems right at home. Since S had so much money left over, he is already planning which add-ons for the cage he'll buy on the next trip to the big city.
G is 12 weeks old now and weighs just over 11 pounds. If Mom or Dad is busy, he has 4 older siblings to care for every need...whether it be a clean diaper, a burp, or simply a shoulder upon which to fall asleep.
G enjoys the violin also, except he doesn't get held during those concerts.
We thought this was the safest way to introduce Gerald to The Dog since The Dog likes disposing of Gerald's distant cousins. The Dog sniffed around the ball for a bit then he tried to pounce on it.
We think it is best if Gerald's future exercise sessions take place while The Dog is outside. Gerald agrees!
Since the nearest place to buy diapers is over the mountain (which isn't too far except in a snow storm), I decided that G would predominantly be in cloth diapers. I'm not a glutton for punishment, so I decided to wait until now when all of our holiday travels were over. Also, since the diaper bag stays in the vehicle for the most part, we'll do disposables when we venture out.
S thinks he looks like the best pet ever. Notice the soap dish in the background. I thought it was prudent for them to be acquainted in the bathroom just in case Gerald decided to try to escape.
Gerald slept at the top of the cage last night. This morning he has explored around the rest of the cage and now seems right at home. Since S had so much money left over, he is already planning which add-ons for the cage he'll buy on the next trip to the big city.
