An Early Birthday Gift for Cameron and Makoa

Cameron and Makoa have been all but begging for a Chinchilla for over a year now. I have absolutely.refused. We had 4 of them before we had Makoa and as much as I adored them, I'm not a pet person... unless its a tortoise or chameleon (I prefer slow moving, low-maintenance pets). ANYWAY - We did the fish thing with Makoa and he did really good making sure it got fed and he was very concerned when it finally died (I think it was the ph balance of the water?!?!).

So when I was told that this little critter needed a new home for an incredibly reasonable price, I was sorely tempted. I am not good at surprising people, and I knew Cameron and Makoa would be blown away because this is the last thing they would expect from me. And I knew they would love it.

But I couldn't get Cam and pet without him meeting the thing first. So I suspense-fully told him what I had been plotting, but needed his final say since it would be his. He was so excited it was adorable. We decided to meet him and if it was a good fit, we would surprise Makoa.

Needlesstosay, it was a good fit. This chinchilla is older than the ones we had years ago, was a lot more mellow and has been around children for years.

So here's the video clip of Makoa guessing what was in the box...




I don't have a very good shot of him (Oh yeah, Makoa decided on the name Yoda for "him"), but this one I took with my phone:


Yoda is really patient with Ka'imi who loves prodding at him to see him run from side to side of his cage. He lets the boys pet and feed him. He's surprisingly acrobatic which is fun for everyone and he has an amazing temperament compared to the ones we've had before, so YAY because those suckers make me nervous when we played with them and they would get jumpy (which was all the time). Yoda will cuddle, and the other night he chilled with Ty for a good half-hour!

We like him. :D