New Pets

Due to our chipmunk vacancy and all the resulting trauma from our Animal ER, I gave in and allowed the kids a trip to the pet store to choose a pet. The caveat: hypo-allergenic, inexpensive and kid-friendly. We started out looking at garter snakes. They're pretty cute, actually, especially the little ones. But it turns out they only eat these little feeder fish (read: trip to the store every week to buy fish plus the burden of keeping said fish alive) and they're "very fast" (read: impossible to catch once your child drops it). So that was out. Next we thought we'd try some tree frogs. Their little sticky feet and bulgy eyes are cute and they eat live crickets. However, they're coated in a special slime and cannot be handled; apparently if the slime wears off it leaves them susceptible to infection. So we moved on to hermit crabs. W really, really wanted one. M didn't care. A really, really wanted a frog. But we had to all agree on the pet choice and A was outnumbered. So we came home with three hermit crabs, a heating lamp, sand, a few extra shells and some crab food (comes in a jar, awesome. They even had little tiny "Crab Cookies" as a treat!). These are the almost perfect pet. The kids can take them out and exercise them, give them short little baths, and let them crawl around on their hands. There's no poop to clean up, no sneezing, no smell and I think we could take them on vacation. So, introducing the newest members of our family: Sebastian, Gary (pictured) and Merilina Seraphina. What's really kind of hilarious is how much these hermit crab personalities mirror the kids. Sebastian is W's pet and he's by far the most outgoing. He loves to explore and is always crawling around and climbing on the wood in the cage. Gary is actually very shy and will only come out when he's on A's hand but then is very affectionate. And Merilina Seraphina came home in a bright purple shell and promptly changed into a bigger, better shell, so she reflects our little clothes horse, M. So funny!