or should it be tail? I have been wanting to share this with all of my blog readers for a while. Many of you know that I am an animal lover at heart. I grew up riding horses and had LOTS of pets. Well, when Ella was born we lost our last dog and we decided to not get anymore until the kids were older. Knowing that we would probably have another one. What we didn’t know is that the third child would turn out to be allergic to dogs and cats. It was a sad day in the Robertson household when we got the results of those allergy tests, but I was so relieved to find out what was causing my baby girl’s horrible eczema. She is a much happier girl now. On the other hand the other girl, Miss Ella, wanted a pet so badly. So we decided to get a hamster. I figured at least it was confined to a cage. So off to the petstore we went. As we were browsing the rodent section of Petsmart we saw some rats in a cage… I was like “oh gross! who would have a rat as a pet? YUCK!” But sort of like watching a train wreck I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. They were so funny to watch interact and they kept coming up to the front of the cage as if to say “hello!” I then started reading the age recommendations for rats vs. hamsters/ gerbils. It was a difference of recommendations for a 5 year old child for a rat and a 7 -9 year old child for a hamster. So I asked the very nice, but oh so young, employee why? He said that rats were calmer, didn’t run away, didn’t bite, were trainable and were more social.
So I sat and watched them play and thought, well they are kind of cute. Why not? So we picked out two rats to bring home. Both females, one black and white and one white. We named them Annie and Clarabell. For those Thomas fans out there you will know why. 
So this was September when we got them and I tell you they are seriously a part of our family. Ella simply adores them. She loves to pet them, hold them and talks to them non-stop. It is so cute. When they see you walk in the room they will jump on the cage as to say “Hey, what’s going on?” They are not smelly, fairly clean and don’t eat a ton. They love our leftovers too.
Today we got Annie out, because she is the most sociable and played. So I grabbed the camera and wanted to share our dear pets…. Annie and Clarabell.
This is Annie and Clarabell in their tin can home. We just put this in for them and they love to snuggle together and sleep.
Ella holding her beloved Annie.
Annie loves to sit on our shoulders.
Yes, their tails still creep me out a bit. But I have gotten more used to them.
The funniest part of today is when Annie made it all the way on top of Ella’s head.
This image is not really in focus because I was laughing so hard.
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