Parts Discovery

Remember this little birthday present that Patrick bought against my wishes in March of last year? Who could forget this delightfully loud, wood chomping, poo scattering, furrball of love?

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Certainly not I! When I lean towards forgetfulness I am thoughtfully reminded by the little rodent that he is indeed alive and well. Usually in the wee hours of the morning by the noises he makes that are loud enough to wake the dead.
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We have had Earl for almost a year now, and if it weren't for the loving care shown to him by Pat's brother Dan he would have probably already gone to meet his maker... So Earl is actually now Daniel's ("gee thanks Pat for the loud hand me down gift"). For this reason and only this reason I was against Patrick purchasing such a high maintenance gift for himself. BECAUSE I KNEW he would get tired of caring for Earl.
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So about 3 weeks ago I came home and Dan was in his room and I walked by and he said, "hey Mom, guess what? Earl is a GIRL." Naturally I asked "THE" question, "WHAT? How do you know that?" (Why do I ask?) At which time Daniel snatched Earl out of his/her cage and said (and I quote), "do these look like boy parts?". My reply (very dignified and adult like went something like this)
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Um....hmmmm...eesh, uh, well..............no.
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After all..........I have limited guinea pig "parts" knowledge. After what I am sure seemed like an uncomfortable amount of time for the guinea pig we turned her back over with the agreed upon assumption, Earl is in fact a GIRL.
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It doesn't change much with us, that Earl is a girl, she still needs her food dish refilled, her cage cleaned, her water bottle topped off with the finest of vitamin C drops. But I think we can all agree that Earl is in the TOP TEN for least feminine name in the world. We tossed around Earline, Earlee?, Earletta, Judy, Lucy, and Barbara. But after careful consideration and 1 sleepless night I decided we were going to call her G'earl. Pronounced "Ga Earl". And low and behold she loves it, I can see the appreciation in her face when she gives me that "2 long teeth in the front" kind of grin.
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Since the name change I find myself singing that one tune from back in the day, "G'earl you know it's true, ew ew ew, I love you".... or something like that.. to her when I walk by her cage, give her a little scratch behind the ears and tell Daniel don't forget her water, her food bowl is a little empty, and WOW this pig's cage STINKS. I refuse to take over the duties, so I am content with just constantly reminding. The good thing about Dan is he does it, with Pat I get, "Ok Mom" and nothing happens.
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Sorry about the posts as of late on the Sons and Suns blog. Maybe I should change it's name to Pets that belong to the Sons and Suns? But I really don't have any idea what kind of animals the NBA players have. And these last 2 posts are all the pets we own.