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.