A hamster, a dog & because I said so

A new meaning behind the old saying from our parents. Instead of "because I said so" it becomes "because I feel it in my gut". The first time my daughter's friend wanted to bring her hamster over to visit our guinea pig my gut said no. However, since my brain couldn't come up with any 'really good reason' to say no I just let it happen.

A few visits and several weeks later the hamster escapes in our house. Now I'm not a panicky person, and my parents let us handle all kinds of little critter when I was a kid, so it's not the idea of the hamster on the loose that bothers me. What bothers me is our 70 lb dog and the vision of me telling this little girl that our dog killed her hamster. Uuuggghhh. To top it off, the friend is going out of town tomorrow.

So everyone in our house this morning was solicited to be part of the search party. Of course no one found the hamster (Have you ever searched for a 2" long fuzz ball that likes to curl up in small, dark places and sleeps during the day?) I finally declared that I had to work and left my husband with all these girls who had given up searching but were still very worried.

I also know my kids and I know that my girls will grow increasingly distressed the longer that the hamster is missing. There are carrots and hamster food all over my kitchen floor cuz the girls want the hamster to come out in the open. There are plans to put the hamster cage in the middle of the kitchen too in the hope that the hamster will want to go home. My girls are planning an all night vigil to capture the hamster when it goes into the cage to eat or sleep or whatever (2 girls who don't sleep all night? Alarm clocks going off all night to make sure they stay awake? Sleep deprivation will lead to a lovely weekend.)

I got a call later in the day letting me know the hamster was found. And yes, we learned something and all that jazz. But the bottom line is that my gut told me "no" and I didn't follow it because I thought I had to have logical reasons. Maybe, just maybe, our parents knew something when they said, "because I said so".