Oh, rats!

Our friend, Mike, delights in spoiling Sweet Daughter. He also does his best to, um, cultivate her sense of humor and develop her appreciation of the absurd. (Like I’m not doing a fine job on my own, thank-you-very-much. *grin*) When SD was two, he sent her a stuffed toy for Easter. It was a ‘possum. Yes, he sent her an Easter Possum. She was nonplussed at the time, but we managed to have fun with it. We'd startle Shorter Half on a regular basis by leaving it hanging from unexpected places. The shower curtain rod, for example.

Sweet Daughter has an affection for cats. She likes to pretend to be a kitty, complete with her own cat language, which I don’t understand. “Honey, I don’t understand ‘cat’. Please use real words!” This is handy for her, because I suspect she has cussed me out in cat language once or twice. Anyhow …

Mike decided that a proper kitten like Sweet Daughter needed her own rat for Valentine’s Day. He sent about 9 gummi rats in shades of red and orange. On the morning of V-day, I said, “Hey Sweetie! Mike sent you a Valentine’s present!”

She responded by stopping, taking a deep breath as if to resign herself to the inevitable, and said “What is it?”

I said brightly, “Here honey! It’s a gummi rat! He says a kitty needs her own rat! You like gummi bears, right? This is just a big gummi candy.”

She held the package, not sure she liked the way it quivered. The rat was removed from the package and she refused to touch it as it trembled gently.

“Ew, mommy! It feels likes REAL rat! Take it take it take it take it!"

(Note: We have friends with a marvelous pet rat named Cornwallis. She knows what a real rat feels like, and that it does not feel like gummi candy.)

The rat is placed on a plate. She contemplates her options. She swallows her disappointment.

 

“Momma, may I have some chocolate now?”

And I wonder why she has bad dreams.

For the record, she got her chocolate, and her bad dreams have never featured marsupials, rats or candy. Only the big, bad wolf. And I'm pretty sure she won't hold this against Mike.