Saturday, March 23, 2013

Time For a Photo Shoot!

Got a cute little heart blanket for Chotu to snuggle in. 
Time for a photoshoot!


First he went exploring...


Then he got a little grumpy...


And a little sleepy...


And finally I got the signal that it was time to put the camera away.


Sunday, March 10, 2013

Falling In Love...

The next night, we heard scratching and scraping coming from the stump. We walked over and waited for our baby to come out and let us know he was ready to play. That didn't happen.
So we picked up the top of the cage, lifted his stump, and peeled back the clothes he was wrapped up in. By the time we got to him, Chotu was tiny ball of hissing quills. There's no other way to describe the sound coming out of him. He was letting out a low, pulsing, hissing sound and had pulled himself completely into a ball of nothing but extremely sharp quills. This was going to be more complicated than we thought. 
After carefully using a towel to lift him and then letting Chotu feel our fingers underneath him so he knew we were people, not predators, we were finally able to get him out of a ball and were able to see his adorable little face, reminding us of why we fell in love with him in the first place. He sat in my hand for a while, letting us take some great pictures. 



After some time, he decided it was time to explore and began crawling all over me. We watched as he discovered all the nooks and crannies of the couch and then put him on the ground. He sat for a while, then made a dash for the smallest, darkest corner he could find in the room.
That first day playing with our new baby, we learned 2 important things about hedgehogs: 
1. Hedgehogs are sneaky and fast.
Don't take your eyes off them, even for a second.
2. Hedgehogs poop as they run.
Keep tissues ready to pick up any presents they leave for you along their travels.


I was pretty sure there were many more lessons to learn.