The Third Thing

True to the Rule of Threes, today the proverbial third thing happened.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, going through my coupon binder with the store flier in preparation for the bi-monthly trip (summary of that tomorrow), when Josie came running down the stairs holding Aniken, Patrick's hamster. His eyes were covered with this white sticky stuff, not regular crust but not yellow pus either; it was weird, creamy-looking stuff.

What I thought was going to be a simple trip to the vet for antibiotics turned into a funeral later in the morning. It turned out that, when I held him, in the few days since I had seen him, he had gotten dehydrated and had obviously stopped eating. The vet found a tumor in his mouth, which was probably irritating his sinuses and causing the eye issue, in addition to making it painful for him to eat. There was only one solution. Josie was with me, and she was cool as a cucumber; I was a little teary, myself.

Patrick, who thankfully hadn't come with us to the vet, cried a little, but in the manner of little boys, moved on pretty quickly and was a very big boy. While we were walking from the house to the backyard, though, I heard him talking to Aniken in the box we brought the poor thing home in, saying good-bye and that he loved him. It broke my heart, but I was so proud of him. What a little man. He also helped dig the grave, and put Aniken into it, wrapped in a paper towel, himself.

I'll probably take him to the store later to pick out another hamster. He always took great care of Aniken, taking care to hold him gently and play with him and feed him regularly, so he deserves another pet if he wants one. In fact, DH is going out tonight with friends, so maybe that's how I'll pass the evening; I'll take the kids to Target for Patrick's Harry Potter costume, then next door to PetCo to find the newest member of our family.