I couldn't resist this. We had three guinea pigs born over Christmas break and we have a whole new nest of love birds. Has anyone seen the hamsters? I'm missing two.

The Child-Care Guinea Pig
Monday, January 09, 2006
Special to the Gazette

PAW PAW -- Nibbles XV, approximately the 15th in a line of guinea pigs that have served as the Gilchrist United Methodist Church Child Care Center's resident pets, was alive and well enough Friday to nibble at a carrot while sitting in 4-year-old Morgan Baker's lap.

Nibbles survived a fire that broke out in Morgan's home in the 500 block of East Michigan Avenue in Paw Paw the night after Christmas.

Morgan had taken Nibbles home with her during Christmas break, a practice the Gilchrist preschool students take turns doing, said center director Amy Beach.

Morgan and her brothers, Rick, 17, and Jacob, 8, were roused from sleep in their second-story bedrooms about 2:20 a.m. by their parents, who had heard the smoke alarms go off.

Once they escaped the blaze, they waited outside in a fire truck while firefighters from Paw Paw and Mattawan put out the fire and started to vent the home of smoke, Morgan's mother, Danean Baker, said.

``My mother wrapped me in a blanket and held me because I was cold,'' Morgan said.

Danean Baker said they thought, as firefighters knocked out windows, there was no way Nibbles or a hamster the Bakers owned could have survived the fire and smoke.

Nibbles was in an aquarium on a table in the living room next to a wall that had caught fire, Baker said.

The hamster had been in a cage on the other side of the living room.

The next afternoon, about 16 hours after the fire, Rick was looking for a Christmas present when he discovered the hamster was alive.

The family then wanted to look for Nibbles in his aquarium but couldn't approach it until firefighter Don Fulton, who was there to help clean up, checked out the floor.

After finding the floor safe, Fulton walked across the room and found Nibbles -- ``very scared, wet and cold'' -- shivering under a towel that was buried under debris on the floor near the shattered aquarium. ``The aquarium was filled with debris -- wood, decorations, plaster,'' Baker said.

Fulton gave the Bakers his knit cap to wrap Nibbles in, and ``we took him to the doctor,'' Morgan said.

The veterinarian checked Nibbles' lungs and told the Bakers he was OK, Danean Baker said.

The Bakers will be living in a rented house until their home is restored.

Baker said she didn't know how much it would cost to restore it. The first floor will have to replaced, as well as the furnace, water heater and major appliances in the basement. Nibbles, who is back at the Gilchrist United Methodist Church Child Care Center, can continue his tenure as the 15th resident guinea pig.

``(Nibbles) has been a pleasure to have, and we have a special bond now,'' Baker wrote to staff of the child-care center. ``We would love to have him again if you need.''