In praise of leopard geckos

I've always thought I wasn't a pet person, especially regarding indoor pets.  But these geckos have a special place in my heart.  Maybe because my kids' first pets were mice, and they were so disgusting.  They were cute, until you'd spent five minutes in their stinky, incontinent presence.  It was such a relief when they were all dead.  That was their one good point: a short life span.

But even if we hadn't had the great mouse experiment, I think I'd still love the geckos.  When Claire is inconsolable and I don't know why (I don't even know if she knows why), she can hold her gecko and feel better.  And when I told Anne her gecko was probably dead and Anne sat down on the floor crying, Claire sat down next to her to mourn with her.  I don't know if I've ever seen Claire have compassion enough to try to comfort someone before.  When Anne accidentally killed her mouse, for example, Claire gave Anne an impassive and didactic lecture on what can happen if you squish something. Thank you, geckos, for helping Claire reveal some of her heart to us.

Sorry, gecko.  My awesome photography skills don't do you justice.

open mic

I've told Anne to give up hope.  We set three Louisiana flour traps Friday night.  My brother heard about them on a show called "Duck Dynasty."

I put water and 4-legged crickets (don't tell the kids.  I hope I don't have to face them at the judgement bar.  The crickets, I mean.) in the middle of the floor, hoping that by morning there would be tracks in the flour.  No luck.  The odds of a baby gecko surviving this long on its own have got to be pretty slim.

In happier news, Damon had a good birthday.  I wasn't going to let him have a party, because I hate throwing them, but then the day before his birthday mom-guilt got the better of me and we quickly invited some friends from school over.  Damon chose pizza and banana cream pie and wanted to play "old fashioned games like the limbo," which we did. 

The primary sang "Where Love Is" in sacrament meeting today.  Anne stationed herself at the pulpit (I'd like to know who pulled the stool out for her), and the Bishop did her a favor by not turning off the microphone.  First she started waving her arm like a chorister.  Then, kind of like Angela Lansbury being backed up by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, she sang "Where love is, there God is also" whenever those words occurred in the song.  She didn't seem to know any of the other lyrics.  At the end, she said "Good-bye" and went to sit back down with me and Jake.  "Why are you crying, Mommy?" Claire and Anne asked.  "Because your singing was so beautiful."  And because I was laughing so hard.

After church Anne went missing for 10 minutes.  I was about to call the police when the other ward found her hiding with another girl under the sacrament table--in the chapel where not 15 minutes earlier I had told her her she was not allowed to play.  She came home to a nice long time out, and I promised her that if she ever hid from me again like that, she'd get a spanking she'd never forget (I don't spank my kids, but making me think she was kidnapped deserves a spanking).

During her time-out, she overheard Claire telling me how worried she [Claire] had been while we were looking for Anne.  Anne said, "Now I know Claire loves me.  That's never happened before."  (It's hard for Claire to know if she loves you or not, people.  Don't ask her if she does, or you might get an answer you don't want, like Anne did a few months ago.  It's an unpleasant experience.)

the search continues

No sign of Freckles the Gecko.  I left worms out for her, they haven't been eaten.  No gecko scat in sight.  If she's not drinking the water I put out, she's probably dead by now.  Then again, some guy on the internet claims his gecko was missing in his house for FOUR MONTHS before it was found ALIVE.  So, I keep telling Anne not to give up hope.

the case of the missing reptile

There's nothing quite like seeing a tail disappear under a closet door first thing Sunday morning.  Oh, how I hoped it was somehow Damon, trying to scare me by hiding in the closet.  No.  It was Claire's gecko.  I caught her (her name is Lily), and yelled for Damon to check the cage.  "Are both the other geckos still there?"  No, again.  Damon's was, Anne's was missing.  (Her name is Freckles.)  The kids and I searched as much as we could before we had to go to church, and continued the search when we got home.  No luck.

A word to the wise: when you move geckos out of their cage on Saturday so you can clean it out, don't leave the geckos in a mouse cage all night while you wait for their reptile rug to dry.  Apparently the little ones can squeeze through the mouse cage wires. 

It is now 7 PM and Freckles is still at large, spreading Salmonella all over the house or maybe dead at the bottom of the heating vents.  Our "how to find a lost leopard gecko" google search suggested putting out little bowls of water to help it survive until it's found.  We did that. We're also supposed to pull the back legs off crickets so the gecko can eat, but I don't know if the kids will go for that one.  They consider the crickets pets, too.  Claire says it's okay that they get eaten, because they get eaten alive.  In her mind that's more humane than being killed first. 

The day two of us hoped would never come

But Jake and I are glad the kids [Claire] reached their [her] goals.  If only the goal reaching could be reward enough.

Tennis Lessons

Above: Good swing, Anne!  I think she hit that one (after it had bounced twice...)

Below: Anne messing around with the net while her coach tries to get her to pay attention.  I can't believe all the hair the coach has.  I would have torn all mine out by now if I were her.

superflex

Can't remember if I've mentioned it, but we used a Superflex curriculum with Claire to help her overcome common social obstacles autistic kids have.  Superflex is a super hero who uses his super powers to overcome bad guys like Rock Brain and Mean Jean and One-Sided Sid.  You can check it out at socialthinking.com.  But when you read below how unsuccessfully we've implemented it, you probably won't want to.

The other day I was helping Claire with her math homework.  She often writes numbers backwards, so I must have said ten times, "Whoa, which way does a 5 [or 2 or 7] go?" while pointing at a correctly written 5 or 2 or 7.  Claire was frustrated and grumbled, "Mom is never Superflex." 

And what could I say?  How do you explain to a 7 year old that she can't be flexible with how she writes numbers, but she has to be flexible when she brushes her teeth after scriptures and prayers instead of before, even though doing things in the wrong order makes her "not feel good"? 

She's right in more ways than one, by the way, about me not being Superflex.  Take my veins for example.  They aren't flexible enough to handle the pressure of pregnancy.  I've got some sexy varicose veins on the back of my thigh right now trying to work their way down the rest of my leg.  The only things second to them in beauty and wonder are my compression pantyhose.  Rawr.