When I was pregnant with Breanna, I didn’t want to be wishy-washy about discussing it with Hayley. If you ask her how Breanna got out of my tummy (or uterus, since she knows where that is too), she will tell you that “Mommy pushed and the baby came out of Mommy’s vagina, like a beautiful butterfly!”

(The butterfly part is something she added on her own, as a result of many readings of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.)

(Also, I’d like to take this moment to say hi to pervy Googlers who have now found me by Googling “Mommy’s vagina”.)

Anyway, this amused many people, especially my mother. Then she pointed out that things could get interesting if, after being convinced of how they come out, she decides she wants to know how they get IN. I laughed and said I’d have to cross that bridge when we get to it.

I’d rather explain that fact of life to her than the other fact of life conversation we need to have tomorrow where I will need to explain to her that Nicodemus, the dark brown rat on the left, died this evening. I wish we could ignore it like we did whenever a fish died but a missing rat is a little more noticeable than a missing goldfish.

I’m just glad she was sleeping so she didn’t have to be a witness to how sad it was to watch Mozart try to cover his tankmate with his paws, clicking nervously at me. I had to pet him gently, assuring him I wouldn’t hurt his brother, and then I distracted him with a little egg sandwich at the other end of the tank so I could take Nicodemus out. Nic was happily eating yesterday so he must have just gone to sleep today and never woke up. I hope it was fast and painless. He was really old though, for a rat; we got them around Christmas of 2003. I never expected them to live this long.

R.I.P. Nicodemus, my daredevil buddy who escaped TWICE this month, and who was named after the awesome Nicodemus in The Secret of NIMH. You’ll be missed.