Slow and steady.....

Us moms are suckers. I am not talking about "hey my kid is crying and I am just going to give in and pretend that he is REALLY crying even though I know it is his fake cry." I am talking when they look at you with those big beautiful eyes, and you can see what they are begging for is truly something that they want. And even more so, you don't give in often with toys or candy or the dollar bin at Target. Where am I going with this? Well, here is the story of my weekend.

The kids and I had errands to do this weekend, and one of our stops was Petco. Going to Petco is like going to the zoo for little man. He can watch those stupid fish for hours! Well, on this particular trip he saw some frogs. He asked so sweetly. "Mommy, can I get a froggy and give my fishie to baby girl?" Sigh. His moments of niceness to his sister are few and far between. Plus, the frog could live with the Betta, and daddy does the cleaning....they are cheap......why the heck not? Five dollars later, our little fish family grew by a frog. He wasn't really cute..not ugly..just there. My husband commented on his astounding lack of a life. He swam to the top, breathed, and then floated to the bottom. Over and over and over and over again. My son named the frog Goofy, to go with his sister's fish Minnie Mouse. The next morning, little man told me that he wanted a frog that wasn't broken.....yep, already dead. Hubby was NOT happy with me....and he was even less happy with me when he actually had to pick the dead frog up with his hands since he got covered with rocks when he got the fish out of the tank. The fact that I hurried out of the room saying "ewww" just made it even worse. But the sweet little man just didn't forget. He knew that the fish was his sister's now, and he was supposed to have a froggie. Daddy, however, did NOT want another froggie. In fact, daddy was pretty set on it.

Then daddy mentioned a freaking turtle. You see, I do NOT want lizards, yuck. Hamsters are for when he is a bit older, etc etc. But little man was ecstatic about the turtle. We laughed at how little man was exactly like a poky little turtle. I was not sold, but we headed to the store to do some research. Not too expensive...decently easy to maintain....basically like a lizard in a shell but at least I had the shell to hold on to...durable. We had the guy take the turtle out, and the turtle promptly hid in his shell.

Poor little man thought he was broken and asked for a turtle that was fixed. Then he sweetly looked in the tank and told the turtle he THOUGHT was in there "it is okay, little guy, we will take you home. Sigh...FINE! I got the stinking turtle. I paid for him and then headed to Target to get the rest of the items I needed. Little man wanted this turtle so bad that he kept his little mouth shut the whole time...just simply asking now and again if we could buy a home for his new turtle...which he named Mickey Mouse (seeing a theme yet?)

So, after a lot of setting up and grumbling and then freaking out about touching the turtle, I finally got him all set up. The kids and I settled on the floor to get to know our new friend. Next thing I knew, I was cooing at the thing. Then I noticed he would respond to me. And now, I like the stupid cute little thing. Lizard in a shell and all. Dang it anyway. Anyone know how to train a turtle to use the toilet?