Meet Squirt

The idea to get a new pet started around February I believe.  I KNOW there was still snow on the ground but really that could have been April around here.  But it was February.  Andie was loving her first grade science studies and one of the units was on habitats.  They designed and built a habitat at school for Roly Polys and after that Andie would come home and draw, design and build habitats for everything....stuffed animals, polly pockets, our uncooperative cat.  She loved thinking of all the things they would need:  food, air, shelter, etc.

Also at this time Isaac and I started to bond over watching weird(but developmentally appropriate) YouTube videos.  One video led to another led to another and soon we were watching frogs develop.

"Mom, lets show Andie this when she gets home from school"

And we did and she, of course, said "can we do that".  My automatic response to these things is usually "I don't think so" but I paused....could we do this one?  We can't go see a crocodile fight an elephant (which was another video we watched that day I think) but yes, I think this one is manageable.  So the kids made a list of what they needed in their habitat for tadpoles.  Tadpoles to Frogs is tricky.  You obviously need water but then they grow legs and lungs so they need a way to get out of the water or they will drown if you don't catch it.  They are herbivores as tadpoles but then prefer bugs as frogs.  On and on the list went.  The kids thought of pretty much everything plus some extras (Andie wants to put sparkly things in their habitat so their home will be pretty).  My job was to be on the watch for when the tadpoles emerged.  This weekend we saw some while taking pictures and "NO we cannot catch them at this time....we are finally looking all nice and clean and smiling pretty but will come back soon"

So today was the tadpole catching day!

Getting starting.....

Scoping the scene......

And finding the mother-load of tadpoles!!

She is an adventuresome spirit!!

An eleven year old came by and helped us out.  He was great and funny and caught 8 of our 12 tadpoles.

A little playtime at the park

The kids making a habitat out of rocks.  We boiled some kale and fed them.  The kids watched the tadpoles for 45 minutes (literally) before declaring that they all looked alike and should be called Squirt.

So meet Squirt(s)!  Our new pets for the next few weeks....