Strawberry Princess is no longer

Aloka's hampster died a few days ago. We're not sure how or why... we have many different speculations, old age not being one of them. It was very odd. Richard found her during the day when I had gone into town to pick up Aloka from Josh's house. The transition day is always a little hard for her so I decided to wait until the next day to tell her. Richard moved her cage out to the wood shed outside and she came home just before bedtime and didn't notice the cage being gone which i was glad about. It would have been bad timing as she was having some anxiety about going back to school after a long weekend. (She's still having some separation anxiety). That night, I came to bed late, around 11:30pm, and she heard me and woke up, half dazed, to go potty. The lights were almost all turned off, and out of the blue Aloka mumbles "where's Strawberry?" and then, "outside?" I couldn't believe it and had no idea how to answer her, so I didn't.

The next morning she had no recollection of it, and I decided to tell her after school. She was sad, but not as much as I expected, at least not right away. I think she's still processing it. Later that day she said "Oh well, I guess we can give her away now... although no one would probably want a dead hampster" I thought this was pretty funny and I told Josh. Aloka overheard me and shouted "Mom! It isn't funny, my hampster died!!" I felt pretty bad, but I think she's processing it well. We miss Strawberry...