This is actually a story my husband invented. I was going to make him write it up, but he was a little busy getting his new book out this week. Still, it’s one of my kids’ favorites, so naturally it has to be immortalized here. There isn’t much to it, but just insert your kids’ names and use your dopiest possible voice when you say, “Oops! I forgot!” and preschoolers are going to love it.

Once upon a time there were two kids named Ellie and Scott who really wanted a pet.  Every day they would ask their dad to buy them a dog or a cat or even a fish, but he never did.  Then one day, while the kids were playing in the forest when they found a stray animal.  It wasn’t a dog or a cat; it was a giant hamster.  Now, a  hamster should be a small furry creature, like a mouse with a very short tail.  But this was a giant hamster, so while he was till furry and still had a stubby tail, he was roughly twice as big as Ellie and Scott’s dad.  The kids were delighted.  They named their new pet Hammy and took him home to dinner.

You can guess what happened.  Their mom took one look at that enormous hamster and said, “No way!”  She sent them straight back into the forest to put Hammy back where they found him.  Ellie and Scott were disappointed, but they decided that they would visit Hammy every day in the forest and train him to behave and teach him tricks so that he could show their mom what a good pet he would be.

From the very first day, they could see that they were going to have trouble.  Hamsters will eat almost anything, and Hammy was a giant hamster.  That meant that as often as not, what he wanted to eat was Ellie and Scott.  They carefully explained to him that hamsters should not eat kids and that they couldn’t play with him any more if he kept trying to eat them. Then they taught Hammy how to play tag.

Playing tag with Hammy was super fun.  You could duck right under his legs and out of reach before you got tagged.  But, when it was Ellie’s turn to be “it,” Hammy snatched her right up and started to chew on her arm.  Scott stamped his foot and yelled as loudly as he could, “No, Hammy!  No eating Ellie!”

And Hammy said, “Oops!  I forgot!” and dropped Ellie back to the ground.

They gave up on tag and started playing hide and seek.  Hammy was too big to be good at hiding, but he was a great seeker…at least until he found Scott.  Then he snatched Scott right up and started munching on his leg.  Ellie jumped out of her hiding spot and screamed, “No, Hammy!  No eating Scott!”

And Hammy said, “Oops!  I forgot!” and dropped Scott back to the ground.

Instead of getting better, Hammy’s forgetfulness got worse and worse every day.  One day, while they were all playing Prince and Princess, Ellie turned around and couldn’t see Scott.  Then she saw a foot sticking out of Hammy’s mouth.

“Hammy!  Is that Scott’s foot?” she yelled.

Hammy just shrugged.  From inside Hammy’s mouth, Scott shouted, “Hammy!  No eating me!” and he boxed Hammy’s teeth very hard.

Hammy spit Scott out and said, “Oops!  I forgot!”

That was when Ellie and Scott knew they could never take Hammy home as a pet.  They still wanted to play with him in the forest, though, because he was so much fun.   They thought and thought about what they could do until Ellie had a great idea.  They ran home and got to work with some paint.

And after that day, anytime they wanted to go play with Hammy, Ellie and Scott always wore the same white shirts with bright red letters that said, “No eating me!”