Yesterday, the first love of Luke’s life walked out the door and he didn’t hold her one last time or even say ‘bye’. Ticklish is a hamster and Luke’s 7 (almost 8) so maybe its expected but if he ever treats another woman like this in the future they have my permission to knock some sense into him.  (The picture is from happier days and maybe the last time Luke had a haircut.)

A little over a year and half ago, my son became obsessed with hamsters, creating even a ‘pretend pet’.  So for Christmas 2008, we gave him a hamster.  At first he was tentative, new at this love thing.  His new-found love was too, biting him at first.  But they soon bonded and he loved her.  You couldn’t look into eyes and not love her.

However, it didn’t take long though to realize this relationship took work.  He had to provide for her and care for her.  After a while, he forget he had a ‘girlfriend’.   We had to remind him to take her out and do fun things with her.  Maybe when a friend came over, he would still proudly show her off and these friends would wonder why they didn’t have a girl like Luke had.  But for the most part she was not the thing he talked about all the time like he had before she entered his life.

Ticklish loved to excerise all night to keep up her girlish figure, so we first had her do wheel-running downstairs.  When Luke claimed that her staying downstairs made him forget her,  we sacrificed and kept her upstairs.  I sometimes used earplugs.

Maybe the tipping point was last summer.  Instead of ‘absence making the heart grow fonder’ it was ‘out of sight, out of mind’.  He took a picture of her to South Africa but over the six weeks we were there he rarely looked at her picture.  He started talking of other potential pets… mostly cats (no way I am highly allergic).  He played the field with bugs, spiders, toads, lizards and the like.  He even brought home a wild party of Madagascar Cockroaches from school over Thanksgiving.   Maybe he took Ticklish for granted.  I mean she wasn’t going anywhere.

Ticklish, though so cute, no longer captured his heart.  He got bored with her.  At times he would be affectionate.  Watching her run, offering her yogurt covered alfalfa balls.  Trying to coax her to use the little exercise ball.   And yes, she helped him with his science project this winter when he built a mouse trap and used her to test it out.  But after that project was over, it tried to pawn her off on his younger brothers.  ”Maybe a break would be good”,  Robin thought.  Jack and Drew were too young to really take on the responsibility either.  Maybe two boys were more than she could handle too.  After the short break when his brothers returned her to him, Luke’s love still waned.  She was a neglected pet bound  only to be cared for by the mother of her boyfriend.   Without Robin she may never have gotten food, water or a clean cage.

So Robin sent out a message to a group of friends offering to give her away to a loving home.  Luke didn’t care.  He was done.  He had moved on.  Someone offered to take her.  (Though turns out the mom didn’t ask the dad and he wasn’t too pleased.  Maybe I should throw in my earplugs) When Robin took her away yesterday morning, Luke cold-heartedly didn’t even say ‘goodbye’.

I hope he remembers this when a girl breaks his heart one day…  and it might even be a cat.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 10:03 am and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.