Louie the Lizard

Louie was fun but now he's gone. No, he's not dead (that we know of) but he is gone. I told Ray she could keep him to take to school but she's not going back until Tuesday. I told her he might die before then if she kept him cooped up in his little aquarium. She was almost OK with that.

Bless her heart. She really wanted him to stay alive for school but the possibility of him dying really made her very sad. So sad, in fact, that she cried about it. She said, "I'm so worried about him. I know he's not our pet but can you please pray for him?"

As she climbed into bed she asked, "Will you check on him one more time?"

Of course. So when I went out to see him, I thought I had found a dead lizard clinging to the top edge of the plastic cage. I opened the top and asked Henry to come inspect. Turns out he WAS breathing but very slowly. It was a chilly night and the bottom of his domicile had gotten pretty damp from the water the kids put in his little non-spill-proof dish. I think he climbed to the top to get as far away from the water as possible. I know he had to be freezing.

Then I wondered....does this lizard have the ability to slow down his breathing and heart rate to stay warm? Was he really fine after all?

We left the lid off his cage and when Ray checked on him this morning, he was still hanging on the edge where I had left him. Surely he wasn't well.

Ray was excited but I wanted her to understand that he might not be doing so good. She left the cage open and when she checked on him right before leaving for church, he had crawled his way to the bricks.

Was he moving more because he was warming up a little bit?

He was gone when we came home.

Poor Ray. She REALLY wanted him to be OK.

She cried again. "I'm afraid I'll never know what it feels like to have my own pet."

Good grief!! Talk about tugging at my heart strings. And I'm not easily swayed in these matters. I want to be a "too bad, so sad" kind of parent when it comes to wanting something that just isn't practical. Or at the very least I will explain something-to-death about why we can't have another pet.

But would you believe what we did today? We took the kids to the pet store and began looking for pet options. Ray is to do a little bit of research about what pet would be best for our family. She will report the pros and cons of 3 different pets. Well, at least that's what we've asked her to do but even Henry and I are swaying away from the idea of gerbils, hermit crabs, and ferrets. Believe it or not, Henry and I have actually had the idea of a small dog pop into our crazy heads. I even looked online to see what kind of animals were at the shelter.

Are we insane or what?

Of course, the kids have begun to get their hopes up for a dog. We're so dumb.

I don't know what we'll end up doing. I'm sure this is either the beginning of a big lesson for all of us (kids for realizing that parents can be cruel and us for being so stupid as to act like this was a remote possibility when it wasn't) or it's the prelude to a new adventure with a puppy. We'll keep you posted.

Gosh, we're nuts.