Little Critters

Meet my two new little critters, Hammy (the gray one) and Mouse King (the brown one). Hammy is a teddy bear hamster and Mouse King is a short hair hamster. They were both named by my second grade class. Mouse King was named for the "champion" mouse fighter from the Nutcracker musical. I tried explaining to the kids that the Mouse King dies in the end, and is therefore quite the opposite of "champion", but they insisted that the oversized rodent remains victorious even in death. Now here's a little about the two so that you will feel like you know them (you can add them to your friends on your MySpace page if you want - it's okay with them).

Hammy sleeps all the time. I have rarely seen him awake. I am certain that all of his sleeping is to save energy for his Houdini acts, because he escapes from his iron-barred dungeon weekly.

Mouse King has anxiety issues. Although he has not been diagnosed with OCD, he fits many of the qualifying characteristics, such as gnawing frantically the bars of his cage for 17 minutes every evening and turning around 4 and a half times before he lays down to go to sleep. He also obsessively washes before and after eating. He is awake much more often than Hammy and is master of the infamous plastic hamster ball. I left the door of my classroom open one day when he was running around in his ball, and he was later found three halls over in another teacher's classroom.

So now you know my two new hamsters. Look them up in Facebook in the coming months - as soon as they have enrolled at RMU (Rodentary Medical University) in Cleveland.