slumber party

friday night E came over complete with a small animal carrier containing all four of his ferrets. since i'll be taking care of his kids for him over christmas it seemed like a good idea to get all the kids used to spending time, including cage time, together. for anyone who has been at my apartment it's not very big, it's actually pretty small. i mean, my bedroom is HUGE, but it's definitely a small space. so it was complete chaos when we let his four kids & my five run loose. there were ferrets all over, wrestling, getting into stuff, you name it & they were doing it!

we actually had plans for dinner with april, dave, & alli. so he got to my place, we piled his kids into the cage with mine & took off. i was kind of nervous about leaving the nine of them in the cage together unsupervised while we were out, but E wasn't nervous so i trusted him & decided not to worry about it. all of our kids had met before, & mine were asleep & his were ready for another nap, so there was a good chance that they'd all just curl up & pass out, as ferrets are prone to do.

dinner went well & we arrived back at my place to a cage full of kids ready to run & tumble across my carpet. (!2 `1b90fggg7y=ooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii) the typing in parenthesis is from nyddah in response to hanging out with E's kids; she didn't put the parenthesis in, i did, but i'm sure pretty soon she'll be doing that on her own too; but, she did manage an exlamation point which is a two key manuver. i think she's trying to learn to read, i keep catching her with my books & she stole my stapler the other day. i left my lappy for one moment to check on podo & i turned around & nyddah was on my lappy putting in her furry two cents! one of these days i'll learn not to leave my lappy open when i have fuzzbutts on the loose.

but, back to the tale of 9 carpet sharks & two humans. overall things went well. cass kept getting in over his head with E's girls. i had to "rescue" him from moxie a few times & lily. he's used to wrestling with my kids who are no where near as rough & tumble as E's kids. i think the next time they all hang out i'm going to watch him with E's kids, but not "rescue" him as much. he really does need to learn that if he's going to pick a fight with another fuzzy that he needs to be able to hold his own.

E & i had just cuddled up under the covers to go to sleep for the night & there was a high pitched scream from my living room. i was out of bed & next to the cage in a flash. his girl lily was on top of cass biting the hell out of his ear....even though cass had been asleep before that. i checked the situation out, she seemed to be calming down, so i went & got back in bed telling E what happened. a second later a louder longer scream. lily was chomping on cass again. unfortunately E's kids wound up spending the night in cass & sun's old cage (the starter cage they were living in when i first got them). that cage is impossibly tiny, but it was only for one night. when his kids come to stay with me i'll set up my other ferret cage, the one i used to have for my ratties. it has three platforms & is about two & a half times the size of the starter cage. i'm hoping by then that all the kids will be able to get along & sleep in the cage together, but for the first few days E's kids may be sleeping in there while i'm at work just for my own piece of mind.

my kids are also very neat & meticulous compared to his. my kids use their litter box while in the cage 100% of the time. cass used to have problems with that until i got podo & doodle. somehow having those other two fuzzies around taught him how to use the litter. i'll admit my kids sometimes don't use the litter box when out of their cage....they have a nasty habit of getting right next to the box, looking at me, lifting their little tails & pooping right next to the box. his kids don't always go in the pan when in the cage, i had to clean up some poopies on the bottom of the cage (which is obnoxious beyond belief). hopefully living with doodle would help them with that! i'm pretty sure he's the one that kicked cass' butt!

everyone survived the first slumber party without any real incident's. all the fuzzies seemed to have fun playing with each other. hopefully we'll be able to do this another couple times before christmas. although, E can't make it to april & dave's wedding so he may be ferret sitting for me. i was going to ask my brother to stay here, but maybe it would be a good idea for him to take my kids for two days to get all the carpet sharks more used to hanging out. during that time my kids would have their "smaller" cage to stay in. it'll be super small, but only temporary, & they all need to learn how to play & interact before they're roommates for two weeks.

i wanted to get some pics of the whole gang at my place, but i never managed to get my camera out. so the next time they hang out here i'll get some photos. despite the poop issues, cass' social interaction problems, & the fact that i was constantly counting under my breath 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 i had a really good time spending the night with E & having his kids over. so hopefully we can do it a lot more.