Alas, Poor Spotty

With two geriatric guinea pigs, it was bound to happen, but we were still pretty sad when it finally did.  On Thursday, little Spotty died.

 

Charlotte went in to change out the bedding in the cage and started to pick Spotty up.  The next think I knew, she came tearing out into the kitchen and hollered, “I tried to pick Spotty up and I saw that her eyes were open and she was cold and I THINK SHE’S DEAD!”  Then, she burst into tears.

Sure enough, I went in to check, and poor Spotty was lying very still in the middle of her cage, with Humphrey nudging at her in distress.  To make a long story short, Charlotte took Humphrey out of the cage and put her in a cat carrier, and we waited for Jeff to come home and deal with the body removal and funeral.  (I don’t do dead animals.)

This is the first time we’ve actually had a pet die.  Our cat, Sam, died two summers ago, but he was living with my parents at the time.  Goldfish don’t really count.  So, this was rather traumatic for everyone.  Charlotte brought up a shoe box for Spotty and made a headstone out of a piece of marble she got in Italy.  Jeff dug a hole in the back yard, and we had a small funeral for Spotty.  Elijah burst into tears about halfway through and cried for an hour.

Sigh.

In other news, we had our first home school co-op on Friday.  I had 18 students in class with one absent; I felt as if I had gone back in time 10 years!  But I feel as if it went pretty well…kids are kids, whether they are homeschooled or otherwise.  Some will listen, be respectful, and try hard; others will stare off into space, push the boundaries of respectful behavior, and do just enough to get by.  And strangely enough, I could probably peg most of who will fall where after the first class.  But I plan to enjoy myself, in any case!

Charlotte and Elijah also did well.  Charlotte thinks that she will like her classes and even brought home a salt-dough map of the Middle East that she’s been working on.  Elijah was not as impressed, although he did really like his music class.  The theme is “Christmas around the World,” and he got to help the teacher pronounce words in a French song.  Jeremy did really well in the nursery, for which I am very grateful.  He napped and then played happily.  I was in there during the last hour to feed him and help with the other four under-two-year-olds.  Hopefully, the rest of the semester will go as smoothly!

And now here we are, enjoying our long Labor Day weekend.  My calendar is completely empty for these days, which is always a treat.  Yesterday, Jeff and I cooked for about eight hours, getting 32 or so more meals into the freezer, like what I did right before Jeremy was born.  I had mentioned last week how nice it was to have good, home-cooked meals frozen so that I didn’t have to prepare something every night, and Jeff said, “If you want, we could get meals ready one day over the weekend.”

So that’s what we did!  And, let me tell you, that’s a whole lot easier with two people than with just one!  I still don’t know how I did that when I was eight months pregnant.  We were both dog-tired by the time we were done yesterday, but we definitely got a lot accomplished.  As you make two of each meal, we actually food prepared for the better part of the next two months.  Yee-haw!

And that’s been our week.  Enjoy your weekend!