[Title from the old SchoolHouseRock video, Figure Eight, a strangely pretty but melancholy song.]
My boy turned eight this week. Corean overcrowding began around 1 PM, which is around 1:45 PM in Corean Time.
By the way, no children were emotionally scarred or yelled at on this day. In case you were wondering.
A few of the neighborhood kids weren’t actually invited, but Sun Su invited them anyways (as updated on my Facebook). It was not a problem (unless their parents realized later why they got such short notice from their children). Renting a giant inflatable jumpy thing in your backyard is kind of a tractor beam for younglings.
Luckily my brother and his beautiful family (above) left before two kids got bitten by another (this Twilight thing has gone too far!). Words were spoken (when the mom tried to blame the other kids somehow, as usual), and the biter’s mom left in a huff, vowing never to return. That was a birthday present just for me.
The day after was my boy’s real birthday, or the after-party party. Small cake, big wishes.
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NEW RODENTS ON THE BLOCK
Also last week, unrelated to the birthday party, Amy went out and bought a “black bear hamster.” I was honestly surprised, since she has repeatedly stated she doesn’t want another pet that pees, poops, and sheds all over the house (like … The LIGER! did in his final year or two, unfortunately. Cats get Alzheimer’s too!). Well, guess what this little creature does every time you pick it up. Hint: gloves.
“And the best thing is, it only lives for two or three years,” Amy said. Now that’s the girl I married. *LUB-DUB*
Amy does the hamster cleaning since I firmly state I only want a cat and will only clean up after a cat. Can we get a cat?
“What do you guys want to name it?”
“Baby Black!”
“Oh. That’s … good. What else you got?”
“Bugsly!”
“From that Bedtime Stories movie we’ve seen seven times. Baby Black it is then!”
Say hello to my little friend — Baby Black!
“Look, I’m not the baby of the family anymore.” — our little girl
We ended up with what seemed like a zillion dwarf hamsters after I discovered my ex-husband had a “secret stash” of them in the garage that he’d accepted from a girl at work who needed to get rid of them. He was feeding them to his snakes but still had one pregnant female left that he just didn’t have the heart to serve up for dinner. So I liberated her, and mayhem ensued over the next few weeks. He went to England to play music and I watched hamsters inbreed, eat their own young and generally go insane in little hamster ways until he finally came home and rescued me from them. 