The end of Squee

This afternoon a tragedy struck.

After I fed and played with Squee for a bit...

She jumped from my hand when I accidentally startled her. I was trying to put her in the cage, and open the food package with my spare hand..

Squee jumped and went running, and then jumped off the counter top.

She ran under the trash bin I use for recycling.. and then went running out from under it when I lifted it to get her. I was setting it down while trying to scoop her back up.. and... she ran under half way the exact moment one part touched down. Her front end went rigid and I panicked, pulling the bin away and scooping her up in my hands.

"Squee!" I cried and instantly.. I knew that there wasn't much hope. She looked at me, her front stiff and her breathing like crazy. "No no no baby, please move, please be okay!" 

She clicked her tongue oddly in her mouth, like she was choking. I couldn't stop the tears and panic rose and I started to shake

I called loudly for the girls to call my ex, because someone had to be able to drive me in my teary panic to a vet!

I got in the car with Squee held in my hands on paper towels..
Just as blood came to her mouth... and she took her last breathes.

I'm not doing so well.

My little baby. My baby sent by the universe...
My little Squee... S'kee... Squee-rito... S'keetles. There, the color drained from her paws. There was nothing. No more life.

No prayers and begging her to wake up and hang on baby please... did a bit of difference.

All of the kids are sad, and I am... just... I don't even know anymore. I don't know.. but it hurts and I can hardly breathe.

It may not make the most of sense in the world to anyone else...

But my poor baby Squee is gone.

Buried in a grave in the back yard, in a wooden box with her name written on it. With her sock, and some of her favorite foods from the bag. We said out goodbyes... we cried... I sang part of Ayu's BRILLANT to her...

and I just couldn't handle being out there anymore.

29 days.

That is how long Squee was with us. 29 days, so many.. but far too few.

RIP baby Squee.

We'll always always love you.

Waah >.>

I am so sorry I have sucked at updating this.

Squee is doing fantastic. Ears all the way open, eyes all the way open, super energetic and she loves to climb all over you.

Yesterday, she got her very first real cage! It's pink and pretty darn tall! Her first water bottle too. Though she still drinks half a dropper of the KMR, she seems to be weaning.

She loves pineapple, almond slivers, strawberry, apple, lettuce leaf, dried out bread pieces too!

Today I got a different wheel for her cage because she wasn't seeming to like the plastic one that came with it. It's purple and adorable, even if I was hoping for a pink one to match the cage. Ahhh well...

Today we bought her a companion too. A white mouse named Pikachu. Who... by size comparison is flipping HUGE compared to Squee... but she was still the second smallest one in the tank at Petco that was female.

The first smallest one was a jumper, we didn't realize until she jumped from my hand, ran under something, and when retrieved was acting really sickly.. didn't move.. and... had to be quarantined in the back :( I'm so sad that I couldn't catch her in time, and that something happened that made her... seem like she was going to die of a poor mousey heart attack!

Pika also doesn't seem to have much in the way of whiskers! Which is strange because Squee's whiskers are awesomely puffy! I wonder if that's the difference between field mouse and your standard bred mouse from a pet store?

I went to four different pet stores between Sunday and Today and didn't really find any that would work too well for Squee. Perhaps I should have gotten a smaller one from the place that had some where their eyes and ears were just starting to open... but.. I still had errands to do, and I didn't want to risk leaving a baby in a burning hot car or taking her into a clothes shop just to be asked to leave. -_-;

I was told by the Petco rodent lady that a drop of Vanilla on the back of their necks would help them not fight because then they'd "smell the same."

Squee went crazy trying to clean Pikachu a few times. Pika just mostly chilled and allowed it, but at other times walked away in a way that seemed 'yeah, whatever can I go explore now?'

Pika loves to climb all over the cage, even upside down up on the ceiling. Both of them love the plastic house that is on the third level (second platform up from the bottom of the cage,) but Squee still sleeps in her sock currently and Pika is asleep in the cardboard tube covered with a sock that my oldest made for Squee to play in.

I have their food on something on the 2nd level, water they can get from the main level, and aside from that there is tons of room for the two of them to play.

Pika is more calm to hold, but she is also an adult compared with Squee who is for sure not.

Squee will be calm to hold, when she isn't playing jungle gym that is. She'll eat, all nice and calm, then run around you like crazy and seems to have fun. She did lay down in my hand and just chill a bit while I pet her and sang to her this evening. It appears that Squee is a fan of Hamasaki Ayumi's "BRILLANTE."

Or just me singing. Hard to tell really.

Ohhh my goodness!!

I just went to check on them and .... Squee is sleeping with Pika!! They're cuddled up together in the tube!! AHH!! It's so cute! I'm so happy that Squee seems more lively now with a friend!

^_^;; it's almost 1 AM! Ohhh.
I will get pictures/video up tomorrow of Pika and Squee so people can see. >.> Sorry for being a slacker!

Squeeness!

Squee's eyes are completely open! Not only that but her ears are opening up too!

Since she's started to nibble at my a little bit I went ahead and put some almond slivers and gluten free graham cracker pieces into a teeny dish. I'm not sure yet if she is nibbling, but it's there just in case.

She's also in a bigger but still temporary home until I can trust she's big enough for a typical cage without having issues... like running away.

Also, I've determined that yes Squee is a girl. At least based on a website that helps to determine gender!

She's gotten a fair bit active lately! She cleans her hands, scratches at itches with her feet, and does her best to clean herself. It's absolutely adorable! I'll hopefully manage a decent video of that soon~

The picture above is small, sorry, it's from my oldest daughter's phone, because I was busy holding Squee.

She's gotten so super fluffy, furry on her stomach area too which makes it harder to see if she is full tummied like I could before. She's so sweet, soft, and adorable, with whiskers that seem to go forever.

Not too much to update other than that. I have offered Squee some carrot sliver, but she nibbled just the smallest bit of it here and there. Then again I doubt her teeth are that fantastically strong just yet!

Squee Updates!

Sometimes I think maybe I should just title posts with the day I'm writing about. Hmmm... maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea?

I know I'm behind on Squee updates, between Squee, two cats and four kids... I hardly remember to write for my main blog let alone this one. @_@

Here's the video I promised of my 8 year old enjoying some Squee time! <3

Squee's eyes are getting more and more open at this point! Actually as of Today I think his/er eyes are almost able to fully open! S/he also began to start chewing on things like the paper towels we had down in her little home as bedding along with socks.

So a run to the pet store was in order, and Squee is now very happy with proper Aspen bedding... but still a sock to be sure that there is something to cuddle under.

I'm writing this at 1:06AM PST right after getting done with a feeding. 

Hopefully tomorrow I can get up one of the more recent pictures, where you can see Squee's eyes.

Hmm... for some reason s/he is squeaking a fair bit in the nest. I'm going to go see what's up.

Promise I'll get better pictures ASAP! Ones where you can see eyes and all!

They grow so fast!

Just last Friday when Squee was found, there were hardly any signs of life.
Yesterday, Squee was able to clean his/er own face with its hands, and use a back foot to scratch at an ear!

It's as adorable as it sounds, and I have a video that I will post later.
On top of it, Squee's eyes and ears are starting to open some!! I'm so excited every time I see a tiny little sliver of Squee's eyes instead of just closed lids!

Sadly, I can't manage a good picture of that due to Squee's small size.
Yesterday the girls, well my two oldest, were a big help in keeping an eye on Squee.

Squee even looks so tiny being fed by my 8 year old!

She's enjoying being a big sister to the Squee. 

Like we could blame her right?

It's positively hard not to love every last bit of this teeny Squee.

I am looking forward to even more open eye-ness soon! I can't wait to be able to take pictures of Squee with his/er eyes AND ears open!! 

Squee's Goes on an Trip!

Aka, I had to go pick up the kids out of state at my ex-husbands house. I couldn't imagine the idea of leaving Squee home THAT long.

We were gone for nearly 3 hours total. Squee had gotten hungry and ate about 25 minutes before we had to eave, so armed with the car heat turned on and Squee's food we set out to get the kids.


No, I didn't drive and attempt to care for Squee. My ex (not ex-h) did the drive, while I kept Squee's home/nest on my knee close to one of the vents so s/he had warmth.


yesterday was a miserably cold and rainy day here, even made the house cold and had Squee crying! Awwwww :( )

It just wasn't happening to leave Squee alone knowing that we'd be gone awhile and all that. 

The photo above is Squee in his/er home. The little squished thing at the bottom is yes, Squee! You can see his/er little hand there too right near his/er head!

Squee didn't appear to mind the trip at all. Once s/he's bigger I'll be able to have him/er in a proper cage in order to stay at home because s/he'll be able to eat on his/er own then.

I really can't wait to be able to use the correct gender instead of having to write s/he and him/er! 

My oldest two really wanted to spend some time caring for Squee. So once I went to bed for the night, I left Squee, some prepared food, the cleaned eye-dropper and the heating pad down with them as they slept on the sofa's in the tv room. 

Aside from needing a bit more of a bath than they knew to give, Squee fared fine under the care of his/er big sisters! <3

Squee's third day.

Was actually on the 25th.
I feel like maybe I should go and redate all the posts so that I can do a day by day instead of playing catch up. Or maybe I should just post a couple more posts today just to get everything up to date!

Anyway!

The third day with Squee was the day after our adventure to PetCo to buy powdered KMR. Which was expensive, the smallest can they had was $23! Yikes! But our first day with Squee we'd bought the already liquid KMR. $7 for a can that we could only use for 48 hrs and hardly used any of. >.> Yikes!

One of the cats takes particular interest to watching Squee in his/er tupperware container of a nest. Indeed he managed to bat the container onto it's top end before I startled awake to check on Squee! Thankfully Squee was fine, fast asleep like s/he hadn't even noticed the upset.

Squee gets more energetic and lively each day! Forgive my sitting around in my pajama pants in this video, it was raining that night and so the house was cold. Squee is yes, a Squee-rito ((like a baby gets to be a baby burrito when bundled, Squee becomes Squee-rito!)) while I fed him/er.

I did research last night over if Squee is really a mouse and attempted to figure out Squee's gender.

What I did find/figure out is that Squee is a field mouse, but gender I'm still unsure of. It's hard to tell when they're so teeny!

Once I know of course I will update so everyone else can know too.

Not much that day with Squee. A simple day at home, eating, getting bathed, walking around my hands and being super cute.

Stay tuned for more cuteness, pictures, videos and notes on Squee!

Squee squeaking

I meant to update yesterday, I really really did.
But... that ended up not happening to well huh?

Squee didn't show too many signs of life his/her first day alive until later in the evening at a feeding. I'd been trying to feed him/her and instead, I got this! So I figured I would take a quick video because my ex kept wanting video and... it was too cute not to share!

Right after I managed to get Squee to eat and then given a 'bath'. Squee gets cleaned after each feeding. A warm paper towel and then a dry one to help him/her dry off.

According to the man who works the rodent section of the local PetCo (Petco? petco? PetCO?) Squee appears to be a mouse, at least based off of photos.. @_@ I guess we'll see, I may just have to take Squee in and actually have him take a better look.

We bought Squee powdered KMR. Since it's less expensive to make a little at a time than it is to buy a can and have it go bad 72hrs after you open it. Yeesh.

Squee continues to do well, lively and cute. Took a nap in my hand again the other day because s/he didn't seem to be very settled in the nesting box. Poor baby. :(

Hopefully the video doesn't look as bad as the preview does! IF so.. I may just have to move it over to YouTube and embed it. Ewww...

Well, I will write again. Of course! So much more Squee-tracking to do!

Introducing - Squee

This is Squee. Squee is a teeny baby rat (we think), who was found abandoned on the ground of the Lowes parking lot not far from my house. In fact, poor Squee nearly got stepped on!

Had my ex not done the "oh noo... aww" sound he does when he notices a dead animal on the road, I wouldn't have looked back. Usually I try not to look, but he also did the "what's that?" before it. So of course, I had to examine the situation.

"Oh noo.... poor little...." wait, did I see movement? It was faint, but the poor baby was breathing!

My ex protested as I carefully scooped the little one into my hands. I argue I'll wash my hands, and get shots if I really need to. "Do you think the vet is open?" I'm feeling oddly emotional over the tiny creature, but I can't help it. I couldn't leave it in that parking spot just to get run over by a car, or someones shoe!

Thankfully the vet was open, even if an appointment would have cost a decent chunk of change.

They gave me little hope, but said, if I wanted, I could attempt kitten milk in a medicine dropper and keeping it warm. Done. I was crying because the only other option was leave it to die all alone.

How could I do that? If Squee is going to die, at least I will do everything in my power to see to it that at least its tummy is full and its body is warm so it doesn't die alone.

Or crushed by a car, perhaps maybe even spared. Just to be caught in the storm we had later that night.
Not on my watch darn it.

The day before I'd spent time with my new niece Sarah. She's 6 days old and cute  as can be, teeny, snuggly, and she's suckled on one of my fingers for comfort instead of a pacifier. Just like my kids used to do as babies.

I felt that internal twinge 'have another one!' nope, not happening body.
I had to leave feeling those twinges only to remind myself over and over. No more babies, the youngest just turned 6. You don't need that.

Enter Squee the next day. A tiny baby, all alone in the world. Somehow alive there on the pavement despite everything?

Thank you Universe, I have my 'baby.'
---


I have no idea how old Squee is, my current guess is someone bought feeder rats (Squee would be considered a 'fuzzy' according to my research), and one (Squee) got free of the package.

All I know is it has been 32 hours so far since we found Squee. I've washed my hands what feels like a million times. I've been up every 2-3 hours to feed it and bathe it with a warm wash cloth. I've used more Clorox wipes than I can count.

But I don't care, because I've watched this tiny baby go from barely able to twitch and breathe in my hand to being able to walk around my hand, squeak, and feed oh so happily.

Hopefully, s/he survives the long fight and all goes well at a vet appointment so we can keep him/her!

Pictures and video's of Squee's progress will be posted here daily. :)