A picture of our South American house guest… Pikachu. Pikachu is a chinchilla. She lives in Maria’s classroom during the week and travels to different students’ homes on the weekend. Maria begged Jon and me to bring Pikachu home for this holiday weekend and we agreed (she better take care of us when we are old!).

I gave our nanny an extra $10 to pick Pikachu up on Thursday afternoon. He immediately let M&M release Pikachu from its cage. And then the texts came to me in a flurry!

“Holy cow! Pikachu just jumped on the counter!”
“Oh my – Pikachu just climbed into a hole under your cabinets!”
“Pikachu is insane!”

And that sums it up. Pikachu is insane. Or maybe just a typical chinchilla. In any case, she has taken over our free time the past three days. Maria watches over her like a mother hen, of course. When Mario is too loud, she scolds him to be quiet (or slaps her hand over his mouth which really does wonders to keep the peace). We wanted to keep Pikachu in the basement but Maria informed us that would be way too cold for her. We put her in the kitchen and Maria turned on the fan to make sure she had a nice breeze.

“She likes 70 degree temperatures, Mom.”

We released her on Thursday night and it became quite a chore to round her up back into her cage. She snuck under couches and tables and put the fear of god in you when you tried to pick her up. She snaps her little head back at you and growls. That was enough for me to steer clear. Mario ran around after her with her carrier open thinking she would jump in. Not so much.

We set up all sorts of barricades but she found a way through them.

Jon even got in the game and tried to get her. Nothing. Finally, by sheer luck, Mario placed the carrier down right by the door and she ran right into it. Mario looked stunned.

“I caught her, Mom!”

We took her up to Ri’s room for the night. The kids begged to sleep next to her. Jon and I agreed if they promised to get to sleep. Yeah, right. They talked to her and situated themselves over and over again to find the perfect sleeping spots right next to her.

Mario ran downstairs about a half hour later terrified.

“Mom, Maria is asleep and so is Pikachu and I got scared all by myself!” I saved the day and went upstairs with him. We laid in my bed and quickly fell asleep listening to a recently awakened Pikachu scratch the side of his cage. One fun fact about chinchillas that Maria told us earlier this school year, they are nocturnal.

Great.