Meet Jerri

It occurred to me the other day when I was blogging about the animals, that you haven’t met the smallest member of the household. In fact, when I went through my photo album I realized that I didn’t even have any pictures of her.

In my defense though, she’s not my pet. She belongs to Jenna. That’s a good excuse, right?

Now, before you think I’m totally insane (Hey, keep the snarky comments to yourself) for letting a six year old have her own pet, let me explain our policy…

My role in child pet ownership is that of interested bystander. I remind the kids when cages need to be cleaned. I check the animals daily to be sure they have food and water; if they don’t, I remind the kids to take care of their pet. I purchase the basic care items for the pets, but extra toys and treats are the responsibility of the owner. I will care for the pets if the child is sick or away, but the bulk of the care is the responsibility of their individual human.

To own a pet in our house, you must first demonstrate your ability to responsibly care for someone other than yourself. For example, when Tiana wanted a guinea pig, she showed us she could be a responsible care giver by taking care of the cat for three months.

So far this system has worked really well for us. And as amazing as it seems, the younger kids have to be reminded to take care of their babies a lot less than the older ones do.

So anyway… How does a six year old prove herself? Easy, she stole one of my pets. John got me a hermit crab at a fair last summer, and Jenna decided that it was hers. She named it Fluffy and though she wouldn’t hold it, she took really good care of it until it passed on about five months later.

So off we went to the store to get another hermit crab for Jenna, but hey guess what… You can’t get hermit crabs in Wisconsin during the winter. After Jenna cried inconsolably in the middle of the store for about five minutes, we asked what would another appropriate small pet for a six year old be? One that could happily live its entire life in a five gallon tank.

Meet Jerri:

You see the irony, don’t you? Wanna know what makes it even worse? She lives on the shelf underneath Amaunet the snake. Now that’s irony.

She’s actually not a bad pet, except for the fact that she likes to bang around in her tank late at night, and a few times has been loud enough that she woke us up and made us think someone was breaking in.

She’s really warm and soft, she feels like velvet, and I think that’s one of the things that makes Jenna adore her so much. She’s also hyper, so her and Jenna have that in common.

She has a tiny little hamster ball, and will cruise around the house in it. It drives the cat insane! It’s a lot of fun to watch. :D

Jenna has been really great about taking care of her. I do help her with cleaning the tank (mainly so that she doesn’t make a bigger mess), but she does the bulk of the work.

People have asked if it bugs Jenna that we feed Jerri’s relatives to the snakes. Surprisingly, no. Maybe it’s because we’ve had the snakes for so long she’s used to it. Maybe it’s because we feed pre-killed frozen mice, which look and feel quite a bit different than Jerri does. Whatever it is, she seems to have a pretty good understanding of the circle of life.

So now you’ve met the smallest member of our menagerie. :)

Hugs,