Our Pet Crickets Sure Don't Last Very Long!

We have pet crickets!  Aren't they disgusting?!  We even feed them fancy, vitamin based, cricket cubes to ensure they stay healthy in their short lived lives while we harbor them to be devoured by our...

 

FIRE BELLY TOADS!!!

 

These are technically TYSON'S fire belly toads.  After all he DID work ALL SUMMER LONG to earn them this year.  He had been begging me and Mitch to let him keep a snake that he caught, or a lizard, but we weren't ready to take care of a pet for him.  So we told him he had to prove to us that he could be responsible enough by doing his chores every single day of the Summer.  Well, he did it, and then we realized cages are expensive and that we should have been making him save up for the pets instead.  Fortunately, we adopted these little guys, with the cage and all off of Craigslist.  The look on Tyson's face on the ride home from getting his new pets was PRICELESS.  I've never seen him smile exactly like that before.  It meant so much to him.  Tyson promptly named our fire belly toads Yoda & Darth Vader. 

 

The Circle of Life is common to all creatures, and within an hour of picking the pets up, Mitch and I quickly realized why the owners were selling them.  It appeared that we actually bought Yodette & Darth Mater.  We haven't seen any tadpoles, yet, and Tyson is still pretty innocent on the matter, so life goes on.

 After about a week, we realized how much the tank stinks, and how much work it is to clean it, so we bought a filter & jazzed everything up with seashells and plants to make it look like a jungle!  Tyson is still unsatisfied with the jungle. He wants bigger & better.  He also wants a room full of reptiles, and that's not happening any time soon.  He just loves animals.  Maybe he can take his love for animals and turn it into a professional endeavor someday.  In the mean time we're just forking out dough to buy more pet crickets ALL THE TIME.  They sure don't last very long!  :)

 

 

But it's worth it!  :)  Especially because ever since Tyson's pet snail "Flippy" died and he asked us, "Can't we just get something better than a flippin' snail?"  Mitch & I have been trying to make it up to him.  I think these awesome little toads really are a blessing to our family, and it reminds me of my little brothers when they had pets like this in their room.  They're fun to feed, they jump really high, sometimes they croak, Tyson likes to get creative to design their tank, and they're a lot less maintenance than cleaning up after a larger animal.  The only down-side is that I'm friends with the people at the Pet store, because I have to show up every time I turn around to buy more crickets.  Oh, well!  That's how it goes, I guess this is how I learn to turn into my mother - these are the things that moms do for their little boys.  What an adventure!