I got to sleep in this morning!  It's  amazing what an extra hour of sleep can do for a person.  I woke up and immediately started my chores - in an empty house.  My lovable hubby had taken the kids to the Sportman's club for their Saturday shooting lessons, and left me with the critters.  Sweet, sweet quiet!

Well, kinda....

The dogs started whining and wanting me to get up within seconds of the family leaving the house.  They can't stand to have the kids out of eyesight for a moment, which on a normal day is the reason we made them part of the family to start with.  The trouble starts when the kids have activities the dogs can't attend.  Round and round the house they went, checking every window and door, trying to jump on the furniture without mom catching them, desperately searching for 'their kids'.  I had to let them out a half a dozen times in three hours because they just had to check outside again, the kids might be playing outside without them you know!

The chinchillas were clinking their bowls together, but for the most part, they are silent.  They are still little, and my daughter is in full control of the amount of socialization they get, so I just peeked in a little to make sure they had water.  They are so cute, but little sis is trying to get them to 'love me the most' so the rest of us are hands-off until she has them trained to come to her willingly.  She's getting close, and the dogs are even getting more tolerant of these little rodents, so we should be able to introduce them to the rest of the house before summer starts.  That's the deadline anyway, because they have to be brought to the cooler areas of the house when it gets hot, and the AC doesn't work well in the bedrooms.  They tend to overheat above 70 degrees, so they will have to live with the rest of us for the hot parts of summer.

My frogs are fantastic, and never make any noise.  They don't love me, but they are trained to come when I tap their tank and even come to the top and take food out of my fingers.  Everyone finds it weird that I trained my frogs (formerly the kids frogs...) to eat from my hand, but I've always trained my pets to do something out of the ordinary.  I once taught my first cat to fetch and catch pop bottle tops, which was fun to watch - and she loved it.

Well, I hear the truck pulling back into the drive, so I better get ready for the noise level to rise.  Time to be mommy again, which isn't so bad now is it?  I miss them after a few minutes, let alone hours of them being away.  Remember, we prayed for this chaos didn't we!