I got to do something so cool today – it really made my day. It’s so nice outside, so I was looking for a place to walk with my youngest-for-now, and we decided upon the pet store. Not that we need a specific place to walk, but I always like to have a mission. So anyway, we walked up to the pet store, and they had little baby gerbils. I am talking newborn pinkie gerbils even smaller than a person’s pinkie. I asked the worker how old they were, and she said about a week, I couldn’t believe how small they were. Some were just beginning to get fur but still had their eyes closed. It was amazing to me how the Mommy gerbils in the cage just ran around, business as usual, kicking up the shavings in the cage right onto the pinkies. I noted this to the worker, and she said yes, they aren’t really as fragile as they look. She came over to see them, and she goes, “wait, there are new ones in there that weren’t there last night!” So then she took one of the less than 24-hours-old gerbils out and let me hold it!
It was SO cute – well, cute isn’t even the right word because it was so teeny. It flipped over onto its side in my hand and just laid there, too exhausted to try to right itself. I loved holding it, but it was SO teeny and fragile-seeming, that I was afraid it was just going to up and die in my hand so I gave it back. But it was amazing to me that life begins so small. Something so small and still so precious – it is life, nonetheless.
