Life lessons

This weekend Peanut had an unfortunate encounter with one of our cats.

It seems that Peanut was left out of his cage.

The cat was just doing what cats do: hunt rodents.

Mr. M noticed that the cat had come down the stairs with Peanut in its mouth and gave chase. Miss E heard the cries for help and between the two of them they managed to rescue Peanut. However, it was too late. Though Peanut looked "ok" I could tell he was not. Mr. S and I sat and held him for a few minutes until he died. The kids took turns holding Peanut, and everyone had a good cry. Then they started talking about getting a new hamster. The big kids started asking if they could pool their money to get Mr. S a new hamster. We will give it some time (a couple of weeks?) and then let them do that if they are still interested.

This is an opportunity for learning life lessons about death, responsibility, and caring for others. This is the reason we got Peanut, though we didn't think the hard part of the lessons would be so quick in coming. Mr. S had been so diligent in caring for Peanut, making sure he had food and a clean cage (and even baths, oh my!). We had been so pleased with the care and responsibility he was taking.