Fluffy The Hamster in Tom Cruise's "Edge of Tomorrow" Mech Suit

I haven't paid much attention to the class hamster these last few weeks.  I am pretty sure she is still around.  After we hosted her for the winter vacation, I hoped that she would at least stay healthy and active long enough afterward that there would be no claims of hamster negligence or abuse on our part. 

While Ansel has not been thinking much about Fluffy either recently, he was much happier to see her in the mech suit than my previous crappy drawing of him.

If Fluffy can be Daniel Craig and Ben Stiller, then why not Mr. Cruise?

You can see all of the Fluffy napkins here.

Hamster Falcon for "Winter Soldier"

The kids have been watching the previews for the upcoming Captain America movie fairly attentively.  But I think they were so distracted by the Winter Soldier character that they missed the presence of Falcon in the trailers.

We had the honor of hosting the famous class pet Fluffy the hamster for the duration of the school break, so it seemed like another rodent cosplay napkin was needed.

You might think that I could have gotten some better reference materials for this hamster while it was living in my house for two weeks, but it proved almost impossible to get a good photograph of her dark quivery little body. 

Boys with hamster blur attempting escape

Hamster in "Ender's Game" War Room

Despite the kids' initial protests, we watched "Ender's Game" over the weekend. 

The futuristic kid-centric violence of course completely won them over.  Archer declared that he was "pretty much jealous" of Ender as his education involved video games and was all about combat...And he gets to destroy an entire planet, after all.  The difficulties of the character's situation were of less concern.  I did not bother to point out that poor Ender probably had to study math and science also and did not have the benefit of LEGOs, pizza, or well... family support.

I thought we were done with Fluffy, Ansel's class hamster, but he requested the rodent be portrayed in the war room from the movie.

Hamster as Hawkeye in "The Avengers"

Although he was vociferously against seeing "The Avengers" again, the movie won our younger son over pretty quickly because of Hawkeye.  Afterwards, there was a great deal of pretend shooting of things in  the living room with a bow that once fired mini marshmallows before being broken long ago.

We hadn't done a "secret life of Fluffy the first grade pet hamster" napkin in quite a while, so I cast her as Hawkeye in the scene where he theatrically leaps off a midtown roof while shooting a grappling hook into the side of the building.

Strangely enough, I find the ridiculously implausible antics of the likes of Thor and the Hulk to be less distracting than the violations of the laws of physics committed by the "normal" physical specimens like Hawkeye and the Black Widow.

This morning, Ansel seemed slightly annoyed that I had sullied Hawkeye's coolness by turning him into a female rodent.

2014 Olympics' End: Hamster Luge

The closing ceremonies aren't until the weekend, but I thought some lunchtime acknowledgement of the Olympic games was in order before the end.  The kids are not all that interested in the watching most of the event, but they have watched their father watch.

Ansel had asked for Godzilla on the luge a while back, but I could not sort out the spines and the spandex, and Fluffy seemed a more plausible candidate.

I considered dressing the class rodent in the actual 2014 team USA uniform, but was unable to resist the previous flame design.

Arthas from World of Warcraft with Giant Hamster

Video games that they are too young to play continue to entice our kids.  More specifically, our almost 11 year old does the research and then reports the highlights of the weapons, armor, powers (and occasionally the plot points) to our 7 year old, so they can crash around the living room in the guise of various characters.

Lately there has been some sort of a Skyrim/ World of Warcraft mash-up going on while they are destroying our furniture.  I've only been able to catch the mentions of "Arthas," the "Dragon Born" and much shouting of "Fus Ro Dah."  Not really knowing what they were playing, I paired Arthas with a giant version of Fluffy the class hamster in place of a dragon or monster sidekick. 

Ansel seemed satisfied with the drawing this morning.  It has armor and skulls and that is probably good enough.

Fluffy Shares Strawberries with Cyclops

Ansel was very impressed with George O'Connor's interpretation of the Cyclopes.  (And here we are talking about the sons of Uranus and Gaia, the brothers of the Titans, and not Polyphemus, the sort of one eyed guy who appears in recent and not so recent movies.  And the plural of Cyclops is Cyclopes...just don't want you to think that I can't use Wikipedia)

Based on my five minute perusal of the Google image results for "cyclops," I can observe that it seems to have always been a challenge to figure out how to locate that one eye in the context of the human face.  It definitely does not work well with a nose or eyebrows.  I think Mr. O'Connor's solution of turning the whole head into an eye- and removing the neck as well- is a very elegant answer to the age old Cyclops design problem.

...And they have claws, and what 7 year old boy does not love a thing with claws?  There were strawberries packed in the lunch, so I thought perhaps we should put the claws to good use.

I included Fluffy because it seems that no napkin is not improved by the addition of a hamster. 

Fluffy the Hamster with Zeus

Fluffy, first grade hamster wears her welding goggles while watching Zeus demonstrate his skill with lightning.

Having finished reading George O'Connor's "Poseidon: Earth Shaker," we moved on to his "Zeus: King of the Gods."

The aftermath of the infestation of our kids' hair a couple of days ago has been extremely time consuming...the laundry alone has been monumental... so this was another very quick sketch.

Fluffy Visits Poseidon

We've been reading "Poseidon: Earth Shaker" by George O'Connor.  While we have been through most of the Greek myths before, Ansel was very interested this time around...particular the bit about how the Minotaur was conceived.  I am really hoping that he is not regaling the other first graders at lunch today with tales of beastiality.

Ansel asked for a George O'Connor style god of the sea today, minus the facial hair, which seemed to trouble him.

I added Fluffy to make the image a little less...sexy....

Fluffy the Hamster with Godzilla

There has been some renewed interest at our house in the idea of Godzilla and the upcoming movie.

I included Fluffy the class hamster despite the fact that she presented a scale problem in relation to a Kaiju of ever increasing size.  I was originally thinking that the hamster would be perched on the tip of one of the stainless steel eagles on the Chrysler Building.  Fluffy is so small, however, that I could not get enough eagle on the napkin for it to read as anything more than some mysterious blobs.

I discovered our younger son's hair was infested last night, so with all of the combing of children's hair and washing of 20 loads of laundry, drawing time was quite limited and I could not fix the blob problem.

Hamster in "Mouse Guard" Style

Ansel's love of things rodent related made me think that perhaps it was time to reread David Petersen's "Mouse Guard" graphic novels about warrior "swordsmice" in a medieval world.

Ten pages in, Ansel announced that we would be reading the entire series immediately.  He requested that Fluffy should be done up Guard style.  I had to sheath the sword for Quaker lunch.

Hamster and Komodo Dragon With Cookies

Our sons are entranced by the idea of Komodo dragons.  I'm not sure the reality would be so appealing.  Our older son did a class project on Komodos last year and is still a self-proclaimed authority. His younger brother's interest was suddenly revived yesterday, leading to a request.

I felt inexplicably compelled to include Fluffy. Briefly, I contemplated some sort of lion taming pose, taking advantage of the often pictured gaping Komodo maw, but decided I did not want to be accused of imperiling the celebrity Hamster.

I posed Fluffy away from the Dragon maw, and gave her a vegetarian food offering to hold, trying to keep her from looking too much like a tasty morsel herself.

Below, a gaping Komodo, ready to swallow a Hamster and then some.

Hamster Rocker

More Fluffy, I am afraid.

While the pet hamster at school continues to be endlessly compelling, Ansel has been making some conversation about how it is time to retire the hamster napkin series.

Hamster napkins, however, are a good fallback when I don't get a request the night before.
And I don't see how we are going to be able to have a real live hamster of our own any time soon, so the napkins are a lame attempt at compensation.

Extreme Hamster Skiing

Fluffy the first grade hamster sets a bad example by skiing off a cliff while not wearing a hat:

The cold snap continues here in Brooklyn... and yes, I know it is much colder in other places right now.  But many people in NYC, my sons included, are able to exist much of the time in a state of almost complete denial about the realities of winter.  Not so much when the wind chill is well below freezing, however.

So, in honor of our recent struggles with the wearing of snow pants, gloves and boots: Fluffy is engaging in another exciting cold weather activity today.

While missing a hat, she is wearing gloves and a snow suit.  And she is considerably more furry than the average first grade boy.

Hamster Chainsaw Ice Sculpting

Returning to the secret life of Fluffy, 1st grade pet hamster:

In the midst of a stretch of very cold weather here in New York, it seemed appropriate that Fluffy should engage in some seasonally appropriate activities.  I considered ski jumping, but was daunted by the prospect of stuffing the rodent into the spandex suit.  I figured the chainsaw would make this image suitably edgy and masculine enough for my 6 year old son.

Maybe ice hockey next time.

Hamster Hunger Games

I think we might be reaching the end of the secret life of Fluffy series.  

But there have been murmurings  from Ansel's female classmates that my portrayals of the female rodent have not been, well, feminine enough.  Ansel told me, disgusted, that there had been questions as to why there had not been a princess hamster.  I was rather allergic to the princess theme myself back in my own lower school days... although I hope that I did not display the hysterical disgust that my proto misogynist sons often offer up. 

With the long holiday weekend to mull over what sort of character would appeal both to my masculine violence focused son and his princessy classmates, the best I could come up with was Katniss. 

We have not seen the movie.... nor do my sons want to see it, but they are of course aware of the promotional campaign and of other kids' interest.  

Ansel was not impressed with the napkin.  Archer's playdate guest today found the idea that I had "turned Katniss into a rat" pretty amusing, but not quite in the way I might have hoped.

Hamster RoboCop

RoboFluffy: The first grade hamster cosplays as the Robo Remake:

We had the pleasure of viewing the preview for RoboCop 2014 recently. I'm pretty sure that this PG 13 rated movie was not made specifically for 6 and 10 year old boys...but perhaps the trailer was...

I had some obvious difficulty altering the suit to accommodate the hamster physique. 

Hamster Astronaut in Orbit

Fluffy, First Grade Class Hamster orbits the earth.

Hopefully, she's just fixing the Hubble and not up there looking for George Clooney.

Hamster Skateboards Icelandic Highway

What does Ben Stiller have in common with a hamster?  More from the secret life of Fluffy, first grade pet.

I haven't taken the kids to see "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."  Despite all of the CGI adventures, I'm afraid it would be too talky and too adult.  But they certainly have seen the ad campaign featuring Mr. Stiller longboarding picturesquely in Iceland. 

I'm afraid my rodent version of the image is not nearly as punchy or lovely as the original.  Ben Stiller has a beautifully glowing right ear which I somehow could not manage on the napkin.

But an animal on a skateboard is almost always a hit with 6 year olds. 

Extreme Hamster Windsurfing

The Secret Life of Fluffy, First Grade Hamster:

At this morning's drop off, one of Ansel's female classmates asked me why Fluffy was "dressed like a boy" on the napkins.  I said, "Well, I don't see why a girl hamster can't wear a suit like James Bond."  As the angry feminist mother of two boys, my feelings on this topic are various.  Ansel would certain protest any stereotypically girly outfits or accessories for this rodent.