EXODUS

School is out and summer is here. Wasn't the weather awesome this weekend? I can't resist hanging out with my neighbors on the patio when its this nice.

Next weekend our neighborhood is having a garage sale. I hate shopping at garage sales, but I love having them. When people offer we money for my junk I get a bit of sellers buzz. Grace is on a mission to get a new cell phone, which she must pay for on her own. This has motivated her to clean house and she is selling a lot of good "junk" at the sale. Yesterday, we spent the morning figuring out what to sell.

While scavenging the basement I smell the rodents (gerbils). I instructed Grace to clean the cage or they were out. After cleaning all the poo and debris, we noticed that the rodents had been eating their plastic cage, a lot of the cage. One of them was really fat and the other skinny. Perhaps the skinny one was eating the plastic and had come down with stomach cancer. Who knows, they are just nasty little creatures.

After owning the rodents for 2 days, the kids no longer liked them. Go figure. My husbands promise to clean the cage, feed them, etc.... had been forgotten. The creatures had been banished to the unfinshed part of the basement where no one could see or hear them. I work out in that part of the basement, and I COULD smell them and I DID hear them. At different times both Clay and Grace had suggested that we let them run free, but I held fast because of previous pet issues.

Yesterday, that all changed. Grace was fed up with them, and they eating the cage bit grossed me out. A bit more and those guys were going to break free in my house. So Grace and I decided to let the rodents run free.

While Clay was playing at the neighbors, we put them in a shoe box and rode our bikes to the woods. Where Grace (not me) let them go. We return home and continue our garage sale organization. Not 5 minutes go by when Clay says....."Where are the gerbils?"

I replied, "they got loose." It is impossible for me to lie to my kids and Clay knew something wasn't right. He says, "Mom, tell me the truth." So I did. He said "I am angry at you." He ran to his room, and I let him go to calm down. We had a sweet mother son lap time where he charged me with the following crimes>

1. I am an animal killer
2. I kill all his pets
3. I promised Clay another Dog

In a round about way I suppose he is correct, except for the dog thing. The kids want another puppy, but we are still working on Dad to approve. So I have done it again. Another failed pet experience. I do well with small dogs, and that is it. So mark my words, no more pets until its puppy time.

Clay got over the exodus quickly. If only I could forgive like he does. Learn from my mistakes my dear friends. Heaven knows I have made a lot of them.