Journal

I just finished my son's room over the holiday and it looks great! The kids are able to have friends over again. I am hoping to finish the downstairs before the summer. I would love to have a July 4th party again, like we used to have before I got sick.

Ok, so I am sitting on the couch...having pain from a kidney stone. I happen to look over at the girl gerbil cage and I see Mom just laying there, she doesn't look right. I get up to go to the bathroom, gone maybe 3 minutes. When I get back....7 new gerbil pups are squirming around next to mom. I guess I didn't sepreate the boys from the girls fast enough, That brings the new gerbil count to 19. Ahhhhh! Already my son is down on his hands and knees, begging me, please can we keep the babies. What is the animal quantity before your home "officially" becomes a zoo? Let's see, we know have 19 gerbils, a black bear hampster (she's mine) a baby corn snake (lil' under a year) and oh yeah Rocky - the boxer. Not to mention 4 children, counting my biggest kid, Jim, although some people might know him as my husband.  

Ok, I should start this story from the beginning. One week before Christmas my husband has a brainstorm idea and brings home 3 gerbils from the tech school he works at. He thought they would be good gifts for the kids, one for each of them. 2 girl gerbils in one cage for my girls and my son got one boy gerbil in his cage. There was supposed to be 2 boys but the one killed the other so my son only got one. Well, we don't know anything about gerbils - we have had a few hampters before but never gerbils. Evidently gerbils shouldn't be alone, they need to be with other gerbils. My sons gerbil dies a few weeks after Christmas. Great gift Dad! Of course my son now wants another gerbil - or should I say gerbils since they can't be alone. We go to Petsmart to get 2 boy gerbils. I learn something else new. Petsmart's will divide thier animals by sex and send all females to one store and all males to another. Of course our Petsmart only sells girl everything. So, my son picks out 2 baby girl gerbils out of the 3 that are in the tank. Wait a minute, what is going to happen to the third baby gerbil? Now she will be alone. Are there more gerbils in the back to put with her? Nope, they are the last of the gerbils  - so we have to get all three. Now, lets jump ahead a few months. My son starts yelling mom hurry, look what I found! A baby gerbil! A new baby gerbil! Huh, looks like one of our gerbils wasn't a girl after all.  I start taking a closer look - 2 of the 3 we bought were actually boys and oh yeah, I find 7 NEW babies. It turns out when they are babies, the male stuff doesn't exactly show right away until they are a few months old. Being the sucker I am, we kept all the babies. So, finally today I was able to tell the boys from the girls and I had to seperate them. I just hope I got to the girls before the horny little boy gertbils did. Oh, on a final note - we now have a total of 12 gerbils (counting my daughters 2) all because my husband brought home a Christmas gift without asking me about it first!