Who Goes First?

I never met my step-father’s father. I told this to M-ito recently. We were discussing family history. The man M-ito calls “Poppi” has been my father since I was seven and I have not known any other.

“Did Poppi’s father die?” M-ito asked?

“Yes,” I said, “a while before I met Poppi.”

M-ito nodded. I could tell he was processing things.

“I know who is going to die first between you, me, and Mom-ita,” he said finally, a smile spreading across his face.

“Really?”

He nodded again. “Yes. You’re the oldest so you are going to die first. Then Mom-ita. Then, a long long time after that will be me because I’m the youngest.” He nodded, satisfied that he had figured it all out.

“Well… ” I began, “I expect I’ll be around for a while before I go. Is that all right?”

“Sure,” he said.

Excellent, I thought. Excellent.

The Saga Continues

We cleaned the cage after getting the okay from Marc Marone’s shop in Rockville center. I only touched one of the babies because we couldn’t get him to go back in the habittrail. It was only for a second.

Three days later M-ito noticed a small black gerbil on the bottom of the cage. It wasn’t moving. It had been missing for two days, last seen having escaped the habittrail second floor apartment nest, the day after I’d cleaned the cage. It wasn’t the one I’d touched but it was missing just the same. One of the Mom’s had tried to grab it and carry it back to the nest. Well, grab it is not exactly the right word. She’d tossed the recalcitrant toddler around the cage like a rubber ball. Neither Mom-ita nor I knew what to do so we watched nature take it’s course. We saw the tiny black creature hanging out in the corner later, licking it’s wounds but still free of the nest. The next day the little one was missing. At least we thought it was missing. There are a jumble of them sleeping together in the nest and some are black also so truthfully I wasn’t sure – just pretty sure with a gut instinct telling me he was gone. He was M-ito’s self proclaimed favorite.

M-ito found it and I took it out, a plastic bag covering my hand. I wrapped it up carefully and sent it down the garbage disposal – where a previous infant gerbil, a number of fish, and one hermit crab have gone before. Mom-ita told M-ito it had died.

“It died?” he asked, surprised and upset.

Mom-ita nodded. My heart sank.

M-ito heaved a big sigh.

I called Marc Marone’s Parrots of the World and got the man himself on the phone. “Well, you’ve gone through the worst of it,” he said.

“That’s a lot of help,” I said. 

A week and a half to go before we bring them in to be sorted and we figure out what to do with the whole bunch (ie: who stays and who go’s back to the store).

And just how are we going to transport them to the store? Oh boy…

Parenting Lessons

There’s a lot we can learn from Gerbils as parents:

• When a toddler goes exploring too far from home simply track her down, pick her up in your mouth, and carry her back to the nest.
• If you take the padding away from an exit tube your children, even with their eyes closed, will sense the drop, turn around and go back to their nest.
• Some children are daredevils and take the drop anyway. These you have to chase down, pick up in your mouth, and carry back home.
• If all else fails simply block the entrance/exit to the nest with your body and don’t let any of your nine children leave.
• Take turns watching the kids so each parent gets a break.
• Sleep together in a family bed – it’s warmer that way but you can wake up with a paw in your face.
• Breastfeed while you sleep.
• Eat a lot of sunflower seeds.

Under-wear

M-ito is walking beside me today when he stops and takes a wide legged squat, leaning forward and shifting slowly from one side to another. I ask him, “You doing a yoga pose?”

“No,” he says shaking his head.

“Then what’s up with the move?”

“Dad-dito, my tes-ti-cles are stuck to the inside of my leg so I have to do this to unstick them.”

I nod.

I tell Mom-ita later that day. “Time to get new underwear,” is her only response.

Gerbils, Gerbils, Gerbils

It’s the 11th of April. The Gerbil pups are 11 days old and this morning M-ito and I did a double take as we stared at the Gerbil’s nest, where four surviving, eyes not open yet, puppies sprawled. Two are white, one is spotted white and brown and one is black. Next to them were either five or six – I’m still not sure how many – tiny newborns. 

“Huh?” I said to M-ito.

“Can we keep them?” M-ito said to me.

I shook my head and thought, wait until Mom-ita hears about this. She’d been saying she thought the other Gerbil was pregnant too. I’d been in denial. How can you tell if a Gerbil is pregnant? Does it order in pickles and icecream? Does it go through mood swings? Does it rub its lower back when it gets up from sofa’s? Does it’s belly bulge big and round? Mom-ita just knew.

I called the pet store. I got the same guy on the phone that I talked to last week. 

“You’re the guy who called last week?” he said.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“How are things going?”

“Well, I have at least five new Gerbil babies.”

“New ones?”

“New ones.”

“In addition to the other ones?”

“That gives me at least nine.”

“Wow.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What happened?”

“What happened? The other one must have been pregnant too.”

“Hold on, I’ll tell Marc (Marc Marone the owner of Parrots of the World).” I can hear him talking to Marc in the background. “Remember that guy we talked to last week that we sold the pregnant Gerbil to?”

“Yeah,” Marc said.

“Well, the other Gerbil was pregnant too and he’s got nine babies now.”

“Really? That almost never happens.”

“Yeah.” They some things to each other and the salesman got back on the phone with me. “Marc says to just bring them all in, in three weeks and we’ll sort them out then. Let the moms take care of them and they’ll be fine.”

“Three more weeks?”

“Yeah.”

Counting them this evening when the mommies were out of the nest I swear there were either seven or eight new ones. They’re so tiny it’s hard to count exactly.

Gerbils Gerbils

We have gerbils. We held off for a full year in getting them, though M-ito has pressed the whole time for the furry friends. We finally got them and M-ito was in mammal heaven. When people ask, what are they, he loves to say, “They’re in the rodent family. They’re rodents.” I try not to think that way. I tell everyone they have furry tails so they look cuter. In any case we got two a Marc Marone’s Parrots of World in Rockville Center – a place recommended to us the same place we went for the various ill fated fish and the hardier hermit crabs. Overall a good choice, we thought.

We got two white gerbils, females, each about 6 weeks old. M-ito named them Movie and Fari. I don’t know why. they both look so alike I can’t tell them apart. M-ito can. We handled them each day. M-ito has been feeding them in the morning. We taught them to climb into a coffee cup – sans the coffee. 

All seemed perfect.

Then nine days later I looked inside their cage and noticed there were four babies nursing next to Fari (Movie?). Hmmm. I called the shop the next day, after Mom-ita and I scoured the web for gerbil handbooks and every scrap of info we could find on breeding. I called the shop the next day and Marc said, “Well, they must have been a little older than I thought,” an interesting understatement because they have to about 10-12 weeks old to have babies – and, he added, “One must have been pregnant when we sold her to you. Sorry about that. Bring the babies back to us in three weeks and we’ll take care of them.”

Okay. IN the mean time M-ito is fascinated by the babies. We’re fascinated too – I have to admit. They’re pretty neat to watch grow day by day. As of today they are just starting to grow fur and we can see their colors changing. their eyes are still closed. But… what are we going to do with six gerbils? Some of which will undoubtedly be boys and and some girls. Gulp.

I asked M-ito what he thought we should do with them.

“Keep ‘em,” he said without missing a beat.

“We can’t keep six gerbils,” I said. “That’s not happening.”

“Okay, Dad-dito. I have an idea. You’re not going to like it, but I have an idea.”

“Tell me about this idea of yours.”

“We’ll it involves twenty-one cages, maybe twenty.”

“You’re right. I’m not gonna like it.”

And so the negotiation begins. I have a feeling we’ll have three gerbils by the time all the back and forth is done. Maybe more… with visits from family near and far.