Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Crabby

Katie's preschool asked for a volunteer to watch Crabby, her classroom's pet hermit crab. Crabby has a comfortable home on our dining-room built-ins in her terrarium, or whatever you call it. Crabby spends most of her time in her little cardboard house. We take her out a couple times a day and spray her with a little water bottle and put her in her water dish. She then has to make her way back to her little house, and on the way, if she's hungry, she can munch on her little hermit crab meal, pellets, cakes which sit in the upside-down crab food jar insert.

So far, it's been mostly Momma who tends to Crabby, though she asked me to do the duties tonight. I asked her if it wasn't true that somehow Katie was supposed to be involved in Crabby's upkeep, and yes, she admits this is true, but it's easy to forget about Crabby until the kids are fast asleep, the cat's been fed and the dishes are done and the latest batch of Christmas presents has been processed. Oh and there's still Thank You cards to send out for Erin's birthday gifts, and a couple more x-mas presents to buy, the house is a wreck and so on.

Poor Momma is quite worried about our ability to keep Crabby alive until it is time to return her to preschool. I try to remind her that Katie's teacher let us know, via a wink and nod, that it would be "OK" if Crabby didn't make it, as she would be relatively easy to replace. Still, it would feel like a failure not to be able to keep such a low-maintenance creature alive for 19 days.

4 comments:

rebecca said...

Do you remember Fluffy, the DBM goldfish? It seemed that often when Fluffy was in the care of one of them over break she returned looking slightly different. Some would even claim she was a different fish, but what a silly, silly thing to claim.

Not that I'm suggesting it's ok if you kill the crab and have to replace it, but I hear it can be done. Just saying. ;-)

google is making me crazy - this is going to show my login and ant lady. But it's meeeee, Rebecca.

Anonymous said...

Oh No! Please do your best to take care of Crabby. You don't want to be known as the parents who killed her! I'm even shocked that such thoughts have crossed your mind. Does Crabby not deserve attention and love just because she's a small creature?
Don't worry...the holidays are almost over and hopefully there will be enough left in you guys to remember the hermit crab!

qa said...

So, did Crabby make it?
(carole leita in her Question Authority personna)

Alicia said...

Yes, Crabby did make it--under our watch. A couple months after returning to school however, Crabby went to that great ocean in the sky.