Part Two: It's Been Over a Week Since Easter

I thought I'd save a photo of the Easter eggs because this part of the tradition is on its last l'egg:

Youngest insisted he still wanted to dye eggs with me and so we did on Saturday night.  On Sunday it was obvious to me that hunting for eggs was borderline ridiculous with a 10th grader and an 8th grader so for the first time ever I said that an egg with a rubberband around it would get you $10.  Youngest found it almost immediately and everyone thought he must have peeked somehow.

I thought the below was so crazy different looking from years past that I took a picture of it.  Here we have a 5'8" eighth grader all in black collecting eggs. 

The 10th grader quit as soon as the 5th grader found the $10 egg.  So that is the end of that chapter of How We Celebrate Easter.  And that is OK.  But they still wanted Easter baskets filled with chocolate and mint gum for the older ones (god forbid they have bad breath at school).  And Youngest got Oldest's choc bunny because he eats all healthy now and didn't want it.

Late in the afternoon Hubs and I went for a walk around the 'hood.  When we returned Youngest was crying.  Something was wrong with his hamster.

He got to pick out a hamster at the pet store about 1.5 years ago for a birthday present.  This is one boy who loves pets and who has parents that love pets but had two dogs and two cats pre-kids during kid toddler years and whose pets died of old age and whose pets were the parents' "children" pre-kids and whose pets were so wonderful that they broke my heart with their passing and whose yard for past 6 years since pets died is not fenced, and whose male parent is a neat freak and pets just won't fit anymore these days.

His hamster pet was like a dog to him.  His hamster had been a big part of our morning.  As you perhaps can tell, I am cherishing my Youngest a lot these days because I have seen the ways of high schooler and it is not pretty nor easy nor restful and I cherish my time with Youngest, and our mornings alone include bringing the hamster in his cage every morning to the kitchen during breakfast and lunch making and the hammy gets treats and climbs his cage walls.  After school he goes straight to his hammy and then at bedtime is seed treat time and maybe some hammy-plastic-ball-playtime action.

I've told him before that hammies do not live much past 2 or 2.5 years and we've talked about it and Youngest would say that when that time came he'd know that his hammy had a really good hamster life.

We'd noticed that for a few weeks the hamster's fur was getting thin and he was looking scrawny.  When we walked in the door and found Youngest crying that something was wrong with the hamster, which was on its side, the hamster lived for about 10 more minutes.  I'm feeling a little awkward writing this, with so much else going on in our lives, but it was painful and yet I was amazed at how Youngest was expressing himself and was decisive.  He was comforted some that his hammy had him there the last hour.  He said he was glad that his hammy positioned himself on his side when he died to make it look like he was sleeping.  and he wanted to bury him in the yard asap and he decided right away where to bury him and he liked that I quickly found a raisin box in the pantry and he added some favorite treats.  We all went out front and his middle brother dug a grave next to a bird bath where Youngest directed.  And yours truly went through about 5 Kleenexes.  And then more as we talked at bedtime and he said he was the best hammy in the world and could never be replaced.

The next morning was Monday and after Youngest went to school I had to get ready toward the end of the day to drive to the airport for a one night trip for work (first out of town trip since November), so I left him a note on his pillow--and I don't know what made me think of this since we have never discussed this ever--but I suggested that we make a "garden stone" that he can decorate for hammy.  I really hated going out of town and if you can believe it I felt his pain so much I was even teary on the flight over it.  Thank god that Hubs--who does not spend time with him in his room at bedtime like I do--did so in my absence.

Youngest really liked the stepping stone idea so the next Saturday we went to the craft store and got a kit and bought extra stones because he knew he wanted to make an image of the brown hammy with a black stripe down his back.

It was a great project for him for The Best Hammy Ever and things are better now over a week later (even though I used two Kleenexes as I wrote this so I am a mess).