In some exciting news, Nathan found a job! He's going to be working for the county as an in-home caregiver for the elderly. He'll basically go to 3 or 4 houses a day and clean the house and run errands (grocery shopping, banking, etc.). He gets paid mileage and there's an almost immediate opportunity for advancement if he takes a 30 day class (which he will). Then he'll get a pay raise and benefits! Yaaaay! The process of getting started is taking a while mostly because of bad weather, but hopefully he'll start working soon :) By the way, I haven't subbed since those 3 days I worked about 2 weeks ago...
In more exciting news, Nathan surprised me with a little gift last Friday! Meet Simon, the adorable little rat! I've been talking about getting a pet rat for a long time (they're seriously awesome pets- I've had 3 of them), and Nathan saw some when he was browsing for something else at a pet store and fell in love with this little guy. Everybody say, "awwwww!"
This picture is just so you can see how big he is in comparison to my hand. He's still a baby- probably just a month or two old. Sorry about the blurriness of these pictures- he doesn't always like to sit still!
Here's Simon demonstrating that he's a hoodie rat. He loves to hang out in the collar of my hoodie. He tickles too!
I was thinking of asking for an aquarium topper cage (I just discovered them recently and think they're genius) for my birthday, but we decided to make one instead! We spent just $10 for materials as opposed to the $30-$50 that we would have spent for one at a store (compare ours to this and this). I think it turned out amazing. It added 3 extra levels to Simon's world! Simon is that little white ball in the lower right hand corner. Do you like my lovely rat wire sculpture on top?? ;)
I lined the doorway with felt because the edges of the wire mesh are scratchy. We moved his food and his bed up to the new cage to bribe him to go up- it's taking him a while to get used to it! Even now he has a little nest built on the bottom in the wood chips (he used those paper towel bits you see in the picture above).
Here's one of the awesome things about Simon: he loooves to be petted and scratched. He'll just lay perfectly still and close his eyes and let you rub his head and cheeks and scratch behind his ears- he's in rat heaven. He even kneads with his front feet (like a cat does)- so cute!! This is Nathan and his sister Rachel giving him a full body massage. He's spoiled already.
We introduced Simon to Francis (excuse me... CAPTAIN Francis), our hamster, today, and Francis opened his mouth as wide as he could, bared his teeth, and screamed (like a hawk swooping down on its prey)!!! It was terrifying! Sorry Francis, but rats are far superior to hamsters. Ye ol sea dog, ye.
3 comments:
I commented on the last one, but I have to comment on this one, too. I can't believe you have a rat . . . as a pet!! Gross!!!! And you let it crawl in your collar?? Wow. That's love. :)
Simon is uber-cute! I like his name as well. Hope he won't get his little ratty feet stuck in the wire mesh. (remember?) Hope you have fun with him. He sounds as nice as Rosie was!
Congrats to Nathan on the job. Hip, hip, hurrah!
Yay for the job Nate!!
How sad that Francis doesn't like Simon. My mom can't believe you have a rat for a pet. I think he's cute though.
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