Flushed

What can I say . . . we were not meant to be pet people. Remember Fermie, our pet gecko?

For some reason pets don't like us and decide death is the most viable option to living with us (yes, I know I'm foreshadowing a little here).

At our annual neighborhood adult white elephant Christmas party (try to say that several times in a row), I came home with three goldfish. Or what Tyler and I thought were goldfish. Our friend clarified that they were nothing more than feeder fish . . . the fish that ultimately get fed to other fish.

Tyler was shocked I picked the fish to bring home. I could have stolen the blanket and chocolates but thought my kids would get a kick out of having some fish.

Those marine life were quickly dubbed Bruce, Scissors, and Banana. I was hoping they would last at least a week.

Two days later we lost Bruce.

The next day was Banana.

And Scissors was the last to flop over a day later.

If you do the math correctly, we had them all of three days total.

Like I said, I don't think pets are in our future or should even be considered.

The death of a pet

Kiersten broke my heart this morning when she came down the hall holding Fermie.

"I think she's dead," she said with tears in her eyes as she continued to stroke her gecko.

The scene reminded me of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men when Lenny has killed his pet mouse and he just continues to stroke it, as if that might help resurrect it.

This was the kids' first pet, even if it was a shared pet with the neighbors. There were lots of tears when we broke the news to Cambree and her family. The girls gave their gecko a proper burial out by the apple tree (and learned how hard it is to bury anything in the middle of January due to rock solid ground).

One of the worst things about being a parent is seeing my children hurt and cry and experience heartache. I just want to shoulder it for them. I want them to live wonderful, happy lives where there is no hurt or pain or sadness. But I also know that it is the hurt and pain that helps us to grow, to learn compassion and understanding.

It has been a hard day.

A gecko was never in my food budget

I'm not really into the whole gecko thing.

Can't we just get a dog?

Preferably a yellow lab pup?

I found out this week when I was suddenly forced to buy food to keep the gecko from starving is that the crickets it eats have to be alive (no using the squashed ones in my garage) so that entailed also buying cricket food.

Are you kidding me?

I have to buy food for the food to feed the gecko.

So not only do we have a gecko, but we have live crickets in a bucket. Kiersten is now known as our little bug harvester.

I'm ready for this little love affair to end as she keeps begging me to hold Fermie.

I can't even go there.

I am just not a reptile kind of a girl.

Meet Fermie

That's right. We have a pet gecko thanks to Kiersten and her friend Cambree and their ingenuity. Their sixth grade class held an end-of-year auction and since neither one had enough money to buy the class pet on their own, they combined and bought it together. We got first dibs since Cambree is out of town for the weekend. I'm not really fond of the gecko. Just make sure she stays in her cage.

We ate our traditional chocolate cake for breakfast to celebrate the last day of school, and Kiersten spotted our first mouse, thankfully, in the garage. We might need a pet cat to join Fermie if the mice sightings keep up. With all this rain the neighbor's kitty just isn't doing its job.