We've had Lenny the Guinea Pig Wonder Pet for a little over a year now.  She started life as a little bitty thing scared to death of us.  Today, she is just another member of the family.  She is excited to see us when we come home (mostly because we feed her), and she anxiously waits for us to feed her her nightly dinner of carrots and Romaine lettuce by chewing on her cage.  When we get up in the morning, she is excited to see us because we feed her AGAIN.  She takes her Guinea "Pig" titles pretty seriously as she spends a lot of her young guinea pig life thinking about food.  She puts up with the kids playing with her (as you can see) and has been poked and prodded more times than I can count and keeps coming back for more.  She started out pretty scared of everything, but nowadays, she will even come to the kids.  She must have a pretty short memory, because, personally, I'd run away from Princess K if I were her.

Princess K has yet to figure out how to dress her up as a doll (that's a good thing, in my opinion), but I know it's only a matter of time before she does learn to do this.  Fortunately (for Lenny), Princess K is going though a phase here where she takes all of her dollies' clothes off giving us an eerie pile of naked dollies, so maybe Lenny is good to go for awhile as Lenny spends most of her life naked.

When we bought Lenny last year, my plan was to have her as a gateway pet to the more advanced pets (read DOG) that everybody but ME wanted.  The agreement was that Super Michael would take care of Lenny the Wonder Pet, feed her, and clean her cage, and play with her to show that he could be responsible for a pet.  Granted, he was only five at the time, but I expected at least a little more help in the whole animal category.  Maybe some help cleaning the cage or at least feeding her when she needs to be fed.  But, interestingly enough, he's usually elsewhere come feeding time, and he has claimed to have forgotten the English language come cage cleaning time.

I guess I should take this as a blessing as it gives me an excuse not to buy a dog, but now EVERYBODY is in the "I wanna a doooogggg!  PLEEEEAAAASSSEEEE!!!" camp.  It's getting more and more difficult to come up with excuses NOT to have a family dog..."who will watch it while we're away?", "who will bathe it?", "who will feed it?".  And of course, EVERYBODY offers to do these things, but in the end who will be outside hosing the dog off?  I'll give you one hint and it starts with Super Mega and ends with Dad!

So, who knows, you'll probably see the Super Mega Household out there with the Obamas looking for a family pooch at the local shelter soon.  Give us a big wave, and wink knowingly at me as you pass by.

Anybody else going through this family pet power struggle?  Got any good excuses for me that I could borrow?  What do you do with all that poop?