G-Force is in the House!

So Jake and Evan are doing most of what we set out to do this summer, except the golf. I am not going to obsess over it, especially since they haven't really asked about it. However, the one thing Jake did ask for at the end of the school year he finally received.
Jake has been asking for a dog for a while now. I also really want a dog but since we lost our dog, Beezer, John and I have just not been ready for that step. We still do also have a cat who is 13. Plus, I would only want to add a dog to the family when the kids are ready to help care for it since my plate is already full. It's a big responsibility. So I met Jake somewhat halfway and told him that if he finished out the year with all A's and B's on his report card, I would get him a hamster or a guinea pig, just like the ones in the movie G-Force. How bad could that be?
The way I always pictured it was that you get a fairly small cage that sits on a dresser and your child can feed it and watch it run around and play in the cage. I would probably never have to see it...I was way off base.

So as it turned out, Jake came home with almost straight A's and one B. I reiterated my promise but never heard anything about it- up until three weeks ago. Jake reminded me about it, so I told him "a promise is a promise." I researched it and John checked too. Then he called me to meet him at the pet store with the kids, almost immediately after I read internet research that suggested that guinea pigs get along well in pairs. So of course, we met John at the pet store and I insisted on getting two. Evan decided one will be his. How great! They were inexpensive and John decided to supply these two new darling boys with a three tier Barbie dream house of guinea pig cages (forget the idea of sitting the cage on the dresser). Oh and plenty of food. The boys had trouble naming them, but eventually settled on two names of the guinea pigs from the movie, "Blaster," and "Darwin."
Darwin is cute, brown and white and very feisty. Blaster is little, dark brown and relatively passive. We got them home and we let them be for the first day. By the second day we took them out of the cage and sat them on the floor near us to pet them. Fairly soon, I could see that Darwin was a bit on the nervous side because he pooped even when we were petting him. The bottom of the tray of their cage was filled up with Darwin's pellets almost as soon as we would clean it. They were messy and poop and pee was escaping the cage almost every time we turned around. I was making Jake clean it most of the time but I was too and it was ridiculous. I couldn't believe there would be this much maintenance. I couldn't even imagine how I would eventually move this cage into Jake's carpeted room if this was going to be the scenario. Then I was up late on a Saturday evening, about three or four nights after we got the guys, and I noticed that Darwin was just not acting right. He was jumping up the tiers of the cage, something neither of them had done or even tried. He was pecking at Blaster and hopping back and forth to his food and water. He was like a guinea pig on speed. Oh and pooping like crazy. Something was defintitely not right. We knew Darwin's ears were ragged and we were told one of the bigger pigs had attacked another one in the cages and had to be seperated. We realized Darwin may have been really effected by this. So the next day we discussed this with Jake and Evan. I anguished over making this decision, but we were going to return Darwin. We anticpated Evan might be upset but all he said was, "get better Darwin, we'll miss you," and then went back to playing his DS. We offered him a fish that he named "Darwin." Then we gave Jake a choice: either return Blaster too and get another fish, a pet we are used to and know the care is easy, but cannot pet, only look at; or keep the guinea pig with all the upkeep, but reap the reward of cuddling and petting him. It was a day of negotiations, but Jake made a choice to keep Blaster and that has made him and everyone happy, so far.