Shock of the Newt

For months now, Lily has been asking, demanding, insisting that a guinea pig make its debut as a family member on her birthday.  We have been hemming and hawing, making alternate suggestions, serving up "I don't know's" and "are you sure's" like an all you can eat buffet.  I can't speak for my husband, but I know that I really could not imagine that a huge hamster with sharp teeth that poops in the cage and just runs back and forth and eats salad, was going to live anywhere in my house.  How would that go down?  I know how this works.  Mommy is left cleaning out the cage while hoping that with the gate open the poor thing does not make a break for it.


Lily's kindergarten teacher offered the solution.  A letter sent home in the folder asking if anyone would so kindly take the three classroom newts and one crab off her hands for summer.  I, at first, pretended I didn't see the note, hoping that dear Lily would not include in her grating love of all animals with--what is that?-- a small salamander or lizard or something?  But she got the gene and was at my heels before I could even turn on them begging for the chance to take one of the newts.  "Oh Mommy, you have to see them.  They are so cute.  You will love them."  Cool, right?  I sent an email request to her teacher but did warn Lily that probably all the other kids in class would want to host the little thing and that we just might not have been quick enough with our request.  Oh woe is me.  My levels of efficiency betray me every time.  Though I thought I'd waited a good amount of time since the letter's delivery, it seems that all the other parents were much savvier than I.  Our request came first.  I was even offered all the newts should no one else come forward.  Huh?


When I was a little older than Lily, probably 8 or 9, I stood in a pet shop window bawling over a chihuahua puppy who was as in love with me as I was with him, at least his soft, wet brown eyes and sweet face kept telling me.  I begged and pleaded for this dog, offered all other gifts given to me in exchange for what I knew would be my lifelong friend.  My dad wasn't having it.  Probably didn't even see my tears or hear my pleading.  I waited for my puppy's tiny, fuzzy face that Christmas morning and did not see him.  Just a microscope, a chemistry set, and some clothes and things that WERE NOT HIM.  I wanted to give my child, to the best of my ability, what she longed for.  Especially as I knew it couldn't be that difficult (could it?) to take care of a lizardy thing in a box.

When the exchange was made on the playground, Lily's teacher handed me a scared little thing in some murky water with a bit of white sand at the bottom.  "What do I feed it?" I asked.  "What does he like?"  Her response was something along the lines of "I've never fed him.  He seems to like eating some worms or things in there."  Oh, ok.  "And what about the water?  Do I need to clean this tank or put some other things in it?"  She replied that she'd never cleaned the water and that I should look it up on Google.  Cool.

Well anyone who knows me knows that my MO involves intense research followed by an immediate need to rectify any wrongs.  It was all wrong.  It was no surprise that one of these things had died before ever getting to anyone's home.  The water needs to be changed almost every four days!  There is a food, similar to fish food that has to be served at least every other day!  The thing was climbing the walls because the dirty water was burning his poor skin like acid!  The hubby generously agreed to race out to PetSmart and get all the right stuff--plastic shrubs, rocks, new sand, and food for our new pet, dubbed Newty by the ladies.  When the girls awoke, they found Newty relaxing in a newt's paradise or so it seemed.

Our dear newt, renamed Baby Dragon after the classmate with the otherlive specimen chose to call his "Little Dragon," did not much care for swimming and preferred reclining on a big rock or resting in the plastic trees.  Didier and I check on him every day and while Lily does seem to care for him, she also continues to ask if, for her birthday, she will rise and shine to the beady eyes and soft, rolling body of a guinea pig. 

I don't know.  Maybe.  I'm not prepared to host a menagerie in my home but I love the looks on the girls' faces when they see these little things do interesting things.  It gives them a respect for life, a curiosity, and except for cage cleaning (thank you, husband for all your efforts), I am up to the challenge.  It's the new style.  And it ain't a dog.


(c) 2012.  Repatriated Mama:  Back to the Suburban Grind.