What not to feed an African Spotted Gecko...and 6 other things I wish I didn't know.

Continuation of the Hedgehog Series...

Why this #2:

One morning, I decided to cook breakfast from scratch for the kids.  Which on the surface sounds lovely.  However, there are immediately several things wrong with this picture.  Number 1: it takes a lot of food to satisfy 7 kids. Number 2: the likely hood of any of that food being ready, hot, and edible simultaneously corresponding to the second all seven children can be corralled and scrubbed and duct taped to a chair are slim to none. Number 3: I had not consumed enough coffee to be able to read a recipe let alone make an educated estimate on the doneness of the bacon.  Number 4: Cooking anything in this particular kitchen on the stove is a delicate matter requiring constant and desperate attention.  For some reason they have a nuclear stove top. It is one of those flat ranges that goes from stone cold to nuclear meltdown in 2.5 seconds.  It can vaporize a pot of noodles in less than five minutes and a pound of bacon will go from pink and cold to unrecognizably charred in less than three.  To make the situation more fun...they have the most hypersensitive smoke detector EVER.  I've set it off lighting a candle one room over before.  

So back to my Brilliant idea: breakfast from scratch. I was going to make pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon...which means to feed all 7 I would need to make about 25 pancakes, scramble 14 eggs, and cook 2 pounds of bacon.  It was 7:30 am when I started.  By 8:30 I had burned 10 pieces of bacon, given the responding fire fighters coffee and bagels (its become a tradition), and the pancakes hadn't even hit the griddle.  The natives were getting restless.  Usually the visit from the fire department keeps them occupied for a while.  When the alarm sounds-the fire department automatically responds--unless I manage to find the phone and tell them its the bacon (again).  I'm not going to bother telling you how difficult it is to find the phone in this house--but think navigating a paranormal dimension with a blind Bedouin that only speaks...well you get the picture.  So after the third friendly chat with the fire department that month [which by the way EVERY time they come, they always ask me if all seven children are 1) mine? and 2) all related?  Every.  Single.  Time.  Bizarro.]  They've responded so many times over the years that they kids have taken to waiting at the front door for them.  Its like in their minds smoke detector = big shiny red truck.  The family joke at one point was that I was trying to date a firefighter. 

But I digress.  When children are bored, they play with random things.  When children are hungry, they come into the kitchen and stare at me with saucer eyes and start asking "is it ready yet?can I eat this?can I have a bite?can I eat that?can I help you?"  

**just a side note...i am currently sitting in the kitchen at the bay window that looks out into the back yard while i enjoy a cold two hour old cup of coffee and peck for a second or two on this entry...two of the triplets (Ethan and Lucy) are in one of those jeep things driving around in huge muddy circles around the swing set while the three year old (Beth) chases them with a croquet mallet...she looks like a viking warrior...blonde curls frazzled out in the breeze...blue eyes fiercely narrowed with determination...mouth open in a constant high pitched scream...swinging the mallet like a scythe as she pumps her chubby little legs as fast as they will go...they probably called her 'short stack' again...if she gets within striking distance i'll have to go rescue...someone...i love my job**

But back to the Saturday breakfast debacle.  The 11 year old, Peter, had come into the kitchen and was patiently standing there at my elbow while I frantically tried to get the griddle hot enough to cook the pancakes but not so hot that it vaporized them instantly.  He had on his usual jeans with a million pockets (pockets that I long ago realized that I would never make enough money to go through on wash day...that was the worm incident of 2003) and a standard black tee shirt with some sort of reptile slogan on the front "sssssnakes are sssssuper" or something.  Slowly out of the corner of my eye something on the shirt began to move...On it...not him but On the shirt...one of the lizards was ACTUALLY moving.  I screamed. He jumped. The spatula flew across the kitchen.  And the gecko sailed into the bowl of pancake batter.  He flailed around for a good ten seconds before Peter recovered enough to grab him. He rinsed him in the kitchen sink (against my sputtering protests).

Sadly Sid the Gecko left us later that week.  Turns out-pancake batter is not on the list of approved foods for African Spotted Geckos.  Either that or being traumatically tossed into a bowl of pancake batter is not on their approved "to do" list.

How to give a Hedgehog a manicure...and 7 other things I wish I didn't know.

There comes a time in every nanny's day when she stops and says..."Why in the World am I doing this??"

"This" takes the place of many things. There's the obvious: "why am I taking care of other people's children-this" and then the not so obvious "why am I trying to explain to the mechanic how two five year olds managed to dump (approximately) 45 marbles into a gas tank without me noticing-this"...

Most of my moments of "why this" are found in the not so obvious category.

Why this #1:  Frank the hedgehog is a particularly ornery member of the category of spiny mammals of the subfamily Erinaceinae and the order Erinaceomorpha.  He resides at 703 West Avenue in a wire cage decorated with 17 glitter care bear stickers, 6 army men, and 3 year old tri-colored macaroni necklaces.  I would be ornery too.  

Now Frank is particularly precarious pet for 7 small children.  [Of course so is a four foot reticulated python-but we can tell-- I certainly don't pick the pets.]  

One day some of the children had Frank out for a spin in the plastic ball of doom (named so by me after the guinea pig/stairs incident...that was a dark day) and as they toured the downstairs living room I noticed a persistent clicky scratchy sound from the pbd (plastic ball of doom) and then...strange silence punctuated by a soft click every couple of seconds. Now I'm sure a certain number of clicks and scratches is to be expected from an animal completely covered in spiny quills that has been placed in a plastic ball and rolled around a hardwood floor.  But consistency in sound is so important with this many child handlers...when the noise stops you know there is trouble afoot. 

Sure enough poor Frank had become so terrified that he had dug into the plastic ball of doom with all his little claws and was now suspended upside down mid roll over....all quills out.  He looked like the spiky nucleus of some strange and foreign atom.

How does one extract a pissed hedgehog that is embedded in plastic? (besides the obvious answer "carefully" I was out of my element) I shooed the handlers outside and placed the ball-Frank still suspended-in his cage.  I thought maybe he'd calm down in a few and un-stick himself.  No such luck.  Four hours later I loaded up 7 children and one-still petrified and stuck-hedgehog into the car and headed for the vets. 

They managed to extract poor Frank.  The vet recommended that we trim his nails before letting him roll around in the pbd.  

And how does one give a hedgehog a mani/pedi...

Turns out you gently turn the cage over until their little legs hang out the top-and presto...you clip the tiny toes as they chill.

The other six incidents to follow....