A Day for Apologies

Yesterday was destined to be a good day. We had things planned; I had a breakfast date with a friend and Mahala was testing in gymnastics. School work was going to be light and I was going to write a great blog post. What happened!?
Well, Kaden had a ruff night, God bless him. And Hubby was staying home again from work, the bug has him baaaaad! So I was on the phone with a friend talking over brunch plans when I heard someone beeping on the other line. I looked at the caller ID and noticed it was Skylar's RSP Teacher.  I forgot I had a call with her and our other Teacher at 8:45. It was now 9am, whooopsie!!! So, I got off my call in a hurry and then apologized like crazy. Come to find out the RSP Teacher had forgotten too so I wasn't the only one late, thank gooooodness.
As we were going over what we had been learning over the past few months I could hear the normal rumbles from my sweet family. All of a sudden Mahala came storming into my bedroom screaming and crying.
I told them that I needed to go, my daughter needs me. That was all I said before I heard Mahala scream that he was dead. Oh Lord, who is dead I thought. After briefly saying bye and apologizing once again for our only 6 minute phone conference I rushed to her side. It was her hamster, the hamster that has had like 20 different names. The hamster that she had just spent all of her birthday money on to spruce up his hamster crib as she calls it. This will be her first pet that she has ever lost. Inside I was thinking, what if this would have been Rocco? He is her baby, she would give that dog mouth 2 mouth if he needed it. I know, siiiiiick!
So, after we took a look at the little guy Thanh wrapped him and took her outside to bury him. I watched from our balcony as she dug a hole and laid rocks all around the tiny grave site. She even made him a head stone. I could hear her sobs and she apologized for not taking better care of him. I was pleased to hear Thanh correct her and gave her a beautiful pep talk that seemed to dry her tears briefly.
She came back in and went straight to bed, her heart was truly broken. We talked about how for the past few days he had so much fun playing with his new toys she had bought him. We went over the whys and where he was right at that very moment.
Oddly enough my friend was going to get her another hamster after brunch for her birthday. Then she would have had 2 little hammys. We decided to tell her and explained that it wouldn't be replacing him and if she would rather wait we could do that too.
She decided around 3pm that she would like to be a hammy mommy once again. We took her and she decided to get a different breed, so they would look totally different. After explaining to the lady what had happened we might have found out what killed him. Maybe?! Hamsters should not eat pine or cedar, it's actually dangerous. One of the little log/play things Mahala bought him was from that store and she told me to look at the ingredients. PINE was the #1 ingredient. She said that it is a product for hamsters, even though it's not suitable for them. Can you believe it is still on the market?