Lost and Found

Lost and Found

Lost.  

Okay, well that lasted a week and a half.  

We gave the kids a cute little hedgehog for their Christmas Eve present.  It’s actually for us since we seem to be obsessed with animals, but we pretend it’s for our kids.  Hey, it’s either animals or another kid, and I’m NOT having another baby, so animals it is!  

They have all been playing with him.  The kids have named him EAT ME.  I’m not so sure I’m going to allow the name to stick, but I haven’t come up with a better one yet.  

Eat Me is a 4 toed African hedgehog that I got at the local pet store, ie, I asked the hospital guard if he knew where to find one the week before Christmas.  He and his brother went traipsing through the fields one night and found one.  I paid him 10 bucks.  I’m sure I could have gotten it for 5 bucks, but I overpaid him to help him.  Plus, he did stay up during the night just to find it for me.  I put it in a box overnight and fed it some sesame seeds and water.  

It died the next day.  

Oh well.  Some Christmas present.  

The next day the same guard brought me another one.  He figured 10 bucks is pretty good money (they get paid around 100 dollars a month).  I was a sucker and bought that one too.  Oh well.  Now our guard can buy some presents for his kids for Happy New Year (no one does Christmas here, usually just New Year’s).  

Since Christmas, the kids have actually been quite good with Eat Me.  He runs around the house and is so cute!  He likes to hide under things and bury into little corners.  He’s kind of like a rat with spikes on his back.  Kind of gross.  Kind of cute.  He eats sesame seeds and likes watermelon.  

Lyol was playing with Eat Me outside today while we were at work.  He got distracted and forgot about him.  

When I got home around 4:30pm, the kids told me they had lost the hedgehog.  They had spent all afternoon looking for him in our yard with some older kids.  

No. More. Cute. Hedgehog.  

One of the cats probably ate him.  Or he’s likely hiding in the dirt or under a brick.  

My dad came home and said it would be impossible to find little Mr. Hedgehog.  We see a lot of impossible things here.  We accept it often and move on.  

But I just had to try.  

Dear God, please help me to find our little hedgehog.  Or if you want him to be free, I’ll accept that too.  Amen.  

I looked all over the yard.  It was about 6:30pm by the time Olen came home and could watch the kids.  It was dark already, so I looked all along the brick base of our fence.  There are so many places Eat Me could hide.  I shone my flashlight under every tree.  I even kicked around some plants and in some leafy places.  

No Eat Me.  

We would now need to change his name to Eaten.  

I walked all along the backside of our house.  

I talked to our guard, Abel, and told him to keep an eye out for our little spike ball.  He had already been on the lookout.  

I was about ready to come inside, when I shone my light over to my camel shelter that she doesn’t use.  There in the middle of the dirt floor was Eat Me!  He looked right back at me as he was walking from one side to the other.  

I found him!  Amazing!  

I brought him back inside to be joined by our crazy family again.  Mr. Hedgehog was a part of our family again, whether he liked it or not.