Our Pet Menagerie

We are not pet people. Oh, we want to be. The kids REALLY want to be. But I don't want to have the energy to train a puppy. I won't have rodents or snakes in the house and I am allergic to cats. I hate the noise and mess birds make. We had some goldfish. I ended up cleaning the disgusting tank. Spiders freak me and the kids out and turtles are boring.

It doesn't leave us many options in the pet department.

Fortunately, my mom, who lives a mile from us, got the cutest puppy last year and she has filled the pet niche for the boys. This is Lily.....

About a month ago the boy's buddies, Will and Jake, were going on vacation. They had recently adopted a gecko and needed a babysitter for two weeks. N and A were asked to do the honors and we soon had a really cute gecko named Shadow and a habitat of crickets in our midst.

The boys had a great time taking care of Shadow. We would feed him a live cricket each night and watch him hunt and capture it.

The next week, Grandma had the boys over for an afternoon. She had acquired a tadpole environment and was planning to order the eggs online. Unfortunately they can only be sent in cooler weather. So off to the pet store they went.

And they brought home these:

We are now the proud parents of two fire belly toads. We have a cricket habitat and fixed up the little terrarium with rock and driftwood. I do enjoy watching the toads aggressively go after the cricket and chow down on them! (not sure what that says about me?)

We also adopted a guppy last week. A friend was moving and felt better about giving us the guppy than flushing it down the toilet.

We were at the pet store the other day purchasing more dinner for the toads. There were some cute geckos hanging out in a little pool. We already have to buy crickets each week. I started thinking "A gecko wouldn't be any added trouble." I stopped my self. For now.

I see our classroom soon becoming overrun with small animals.

And only a month ago I was breathing a sigh of relief that we were pet free..........