First Family Pet: Tortoise

Oh, I cannot count the times Toby asked me, "PLEASE, MOM, CAN WE PLEASE GET A PET?"  He tried all kinds of ways of persuading me.  But I'm not much of an animal person and the thought of another responsibility deterred me...because we all know it's mom who ends up caring for the kid's pet/s.  But I was beginning to crack a tiny bit when I saw what a difficult thing being "petless" was for my animal-loving son.

One day he came from school announcing that he was the ONLY kid in his whole class without a pet.  I came back with the classic line: that makes you unique!  "Mom, I already am unique!" he reminded me.  "I have red hair and I'm the tallest in my class!"

This is my favorite part of this story because it shows how much God is aware of the desires of our hearts...of an eight-year-old's heart and it's desires:  A few weeks back we were pulling in to our driveway and out of the corner of my eye I see a tortoise on the sidewalk in front of our house!  There was no one else around and it definitely seemed to be a stray.  We hung out outside with it for awhile, but no one came to claim it.  We brought it to our backyard.  Put up signs.  Talked to neighbors.  No one knew where it had come from.

I called the Pasadena Turtle and Tortoise Rescue and a nice lady, who I emailed pictures too, let me know we have a female Greek Tortoise and was very supportive of us keeping her.  And that is how we came to have our first family pet, whom Asher appropriately named Shelly.

Toby seems to have a great peace now that we own a pet, but it is Cora and I who are the most taken with Shelly. We follow her around the yard and check to see what she is doing several times a day.  In fact, I'm not too embarrassed to admit that I, the non-animal person, might be the most smitten with our Shelly.

Go figure.