Today We Terrorized Small Animals

Today's story began two weeks ago when I agreed to take care of the kindergarten guinea pigs. Abby loves her teacher, but I think she loves the animals more. Each day she talks about Daisy and Panda and how she loves to hold them and take care of them. What better way to help out the teacher and please my daughter at the same time?
I picked up the pigs on Thursday after school and her teacher, wonderful Mrs. Romo, gave me all the instructions. They are sweet and gentle. They let the kids hold them for hours. I received feeding instructions and tips on how to clean the cage. (They came in a huge, heavy cage that I have toted around the house several times in the last few days.) Before I left, Mrs. Romo said, "If you feel like it, they really need a bath." Okay, no problem I'm sure. She gave me instructions and added, "If you're really feeling up to it, they need haircuts." That one stopped me. "Really??" I asked. She told me how much they enjoyed being bathed and having their hair cut. They enjoy the warm water and they especially love the blow dryer.
It turned out that the guinea pigs are very loving and do let my children hold them for extended periods of time. All was going well until we decided to play beauty shop.
Maybe the difference in the whole shampoo/haircut/blowdry routine is that Mrs. Romo does not have small children. She probably bathes Daisy and Panda with the lights dim and a scented candle nearby. That's how people with grown children live, I think. Our situation was a bit different.
Poor Daisy was first. She hated the water right from the start and began running in vain. Her little feet just slipped on the sink bowl and splashed water in her face. She had two young kids on step-stools, squealing loudly about two inches from her frightened body. I was trying to hold her little soapy body, assuring her that she loved baths! Mrs. Romo said that the best time to cut them is when they are shampooy. So at this point, I picked up the scissors. This is when Daisy started screaming. This freaked me out and brought the girls' volume up considerably. I told Abby to go get her father.
He walked into the chaos and I said, "She's supposed to like this!" I picked up the poor animal and clutched her to my chest to calm her down. Mike picked up the scissors and began to cut. At this point she decided that her claws might work well on my flesh. After I cried out and pinned her tiny little feet together, she was left defenseless. So she resorted to the only thing she could. Poop. She began dropping pellets like nobody's business. Mike was saying, "There's another one!" He bent to tissue it up and she shot another one which bounced off his hand. The girls were beyond control. Mike was still trying to cut Daisy's hair while I screamed, "Hannah, don't touch it!" Hannah was yelling, "Daisy's pooping! No, Daisy!" Abby was saying, "Daisy! That's disgusting! Disgusting!" There must have been 15 pellet bombs.
Once we finally finished with poor Daisy, we turned our attention to Panda. The poor boy had witnessed the whole ordeal and was already shaking when I picked him up for his bath. If you want to know how Panda did, just scroll up and read Daisy's story again.
I'm exhausted. The piggies are all groomed now, except for a long chunk of black hair that we missed with Panda. Maybe he would rather sport the punk look than have another haircut. Only 15 days to go.