Yesterday was the graduation celebration for my pre-school boys! The party was oh-so cute and my guys had a blast. Well, they held me to my throw-away promise of buying them hermit crabs as their graduation gift.Seems we were in PetSmart weeks ago buying kibble for the dogs when they made their rounds of the fish and reptiles aisle. They found the tank with the hermit crabs and of course the ones with the brightly painted shells caught their eye. After the usual please,please,please I told them no, but maybe I would buy them each a crab for a graduation gift. Of course, I'm figuring graduation is weeks away and by then something else will catch their eye.
Nope.
I got hit with the hermit crab request the morning before. Of course I had forgotten all about it but not them. Oookay, I did promise. So right after the party, I took them to the pet store and they picked out their new crabby companions. We now have one with an American flag and eagle painted on it's shell and the other sporting a nifty Spiderman web logo. I have since gone online and researched the little critters.
Oh boy, what have we gotten into? And why do these things always start out simple and then get so complicated? Why? I know why, 'cause I'm a sucker for trying to keep a living thing properly. What should have been a simple excursion into crab ownership has become guessing proper humidity, making sure water is safe and crab-quality, figuring out what they like to eat and correct handling procedure.
Handling. LOL, H learned his lesson why they are called crabs - he just wouldn't stop messing with them. Even after I told him repeatedly to leave them alone and just watch them through the tank until they got settled into their new habitat. I went into the other room to look something up online when I hear a yelp and then a plop. The yelp was my son, the plop was the crab falling onto the couch. I asked what happened and he looked at me with such shock and said, "he pinched me!!", then showed his bloodied fingertip. And I, being the sympathetic mom that I am, gently plucked the crab from the couch and placed him back in his home, then chastised my son the whole time we washed the cut, dried it and bandaged it with neosporin. Guess the only lessons my guys learn are the hard ones, I TOLD him to leave the crab alone!
(by the way, the crab is doing just fine :)
2 comments:
Hey there,
Noticed your post on Grey Horse Matters and saw you had twin boys, too. Mine are 11 now, but I do remember when they were both 5. haha
Thankfully they never asked for hermit crabs as pets. But we di capture a crawdad in an acequia in the valley and even kept it happy and alive in an x-large tupperware container for almsot a year. Then we released it back into the acequia. He had really grown huge from all the cat food, minnows, lettuce and grass.
It was a really neat experience.
But we are over that now.
Hopefully their interests will remain in the warm, cuddly and fuzzy animal categories from now on.
hehehe
LOL, ah twins! Fondly known around here as the gift that keeps on taking! We are doing okay so far, the crabs have survived over a week!
Yep, I'm hoping we get to the puppy we have been promising them soon but husband is VERY picky about breeders and wants to find exactly the right one!
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