Crabs

We have crabs.

Pet crabs.

That live in a tank.

*I have to clarify because a friend asked me what kind of crabs on Facebook.  As if I would talk about any other type of crabs publicly - sheesh!

During the last month of school, GG was studying fiddler crabs and African clawed frogs in Science class.  At the end of the unit, with parental permission, students were allowed to bring one or the other home as pets.  GG chose the crabs and we gave her permission to bring home two.  Three if the teacher still had some that needed homes.

A week before the crabs were due to come home, her teacher sent home a bag of goodies for the crabs - Instant Ocean for their water, a water dish, food (that stinks!), some of their sand mixture, and instructions (thank you!!).  The kids and I went to the pet store to find a new aquarium, some fake plants, and something for them to hide under (half a fake log).  GG finally brought her crabs home and we got them into their new home immediately, almost losing one in the process.  Had it have fallen on behind the stand where the tank is, it would have been lost forever!



At first, I was a little disappointed that her three crabs are all female.  The males have one giant claw they like to wave around.  I thought that would be cool to watch.  It turns out, three female crabs are just as amusing.

For the first few weeks, they hid among the plants and in the log.  We also got to see what happens when they molt.  It was kind of gross to see a ghostly, empty crab shell floating in the water, but it was nice to see the two who were missing legs grew new ones after shedding their old shells.

One day we noticed one of the crabs had started to burrow behind the water dish.  Afraid she would get stuck, I filled the hole and made sure the water dish was as close to the aquarium walls as possible.  All was well for a bit, but then she started to burrow behind the water dish again!

We finally caved and moved the water dish out.  Crabs love to burrow and we obviously weren't stopping them from burrowing where they wanted to burrow.  Once one made a nice little hole to hide in, the other two followed suit.  As of now, if you were to come into our house, you would think we were crazy people who kept a nice aquarium without any creatures in it.  Those little bugger rarely come out of hiding before 10 at night when the kids are in bed and it's quiet.  Smart little crabs!

The one thing that was driving us nuts with the whole borrowing thing is that we could only ever find two crabs at a time.  It finally got the best of us and we invaded their space.  Their water dish rests on the sand with a hill on one side for them to climb into the water.  Two of the crabs made nice little homes on the side of the water bowl and the third dug herself a home smack dab under the middle of the water bowl.

Our crabs are so fun to watch when we catch them out of hiding.  Now if only I could get GG to stop talking to them like babies every time she tries to pick them up!


What's the most interesting pet you've ever had?


Until next time...



Head, shoulders, knees and toes, broken toes

A friend recently commented that things are rarely boring in my house.  She was definitely right!  Not only have we been running around like idiots since school let out, but we have been dealing with injuries galore.  Yes, we've had skinned knees, bumped heads, and blisters from new shoes, but I think GG has taken the cake with her latest injury.

Let's rewind to a few months ago to set the story up.  We had a tree come down in the very back of our back hill a while ago.  The husband had been eyeing it up and he finally caved and bought himself a pole saw.  Since I wasn't exactly sure what that tool was at first, I'll explain it to you, too.  It's basically a chain saw that comes with an attachable pole.  The pole happens to be 10 feet long.  Let me tell you, it was a blast trying to get that box into the trunk of a Cobalt!

Anyway, the husband finally chopped up the majority of this tree.  Some of the wood went to our neighbor, some went to my father-in-law, and some went to Little Dude for when he wanted to play camping.  Two weeks ago, after the sun had set, GG went outside to say good-night to the husband.  He was on the back porch playing with his Ham radio.  I'm inside trying to convince Little Dude that it was, in fact, bed time.  That is when I heard the most gawd-awful sound ever.

Little Dude had tied a string from the fence to one of the logs in the middle of the deck.  It was his telephone wire or something.  As usual, GG wasn't paying attention to where she was walking and got clothes-lined.  This caused the 2-foot tall log to fall over.  And land smack dab on her big toe!

I panicked!  Do I get ice?  Band-aids? Call 911?  What should I do?!?!

I took a big breath and went out to help her hobble in.  I calmed GG down as best I could, which wasn't much.  Her toe was purple, particularly the nail.  It was slightly swollen, but not enough to make me think it was broken.  It wasn't bent funny and she could wiggle it a bit.  Naturally trying to wiggle a toe that a big ass log just fell on is no easy feat.  I grabbed an ice pack, shoved some Motrin down her throat, and told her to go lay in bed with her foot elevated.  We would check it again in the morning to see if we needed to do anything more.

The next few days after "the incident" were touch and go.  One minute she was hobbling around like an old man.  The next she was running around like a fool chasing her brother and friends.  Over the next week, she survived a whole day at an amusement park with tennis shoes on and she also walked close to 2 miles in the 4th of July parade.  I figured we were safe and it was just a bad bruise that was already healing.  Tuesday night I realized I was wrong.  Oh so wrong.

After she had been in bed for about an hour, she calls me upstairs and says she thought her toe nail was falling off.  She then proceeded to make it move.  Yes, it was gross.

I called the pediatrician first thing next morning and they wanted to see her IMMEDIATELY!  Is losing a toe nail really that bad?  Dr. Google said it wasn't a big deal.  And we all know if it's on the internet, it's true, right?

Or not because she is now taking an antibiotic and of course it's the one I'm allergic to.  But luckily she seems ok with it.  I don't know if allergies like that are hereditary, but I was freaking out a bit because no one should have to go through what I went through when I last took it.  She also has some cream I have to put on her toe.  Do you know how hard it is to put cream on a toe, send a child to bed, and expect the cream to stay where you put it?  And band-aids don't help because whoever made those things didn't design them for small kid toes.  Jerks!  And to make matters worse, GG stepped on her bee and was stung on her other foot.

Maybe I should start calling her Gimpy instead of GG!

Please tell me your summer is going better than ours.


Until next time...