my 489,679th mistake as a mummy...

i have made *plenty* of mistakes as a mum. i'm saying, my fair share, and then some. but this past weekend i made a doozy of a mistake. we were at *the land* (you can read about the land in older posts), and we had been out in the woods turkey hunting. (yes, i like to turkey hunt. wearing my pink suede, fur trimmed boots no less. seriously.) anyway, j and i had told the kids to play up by the shop and we were going to go down the hill to look at a few things. (j had made london a 4 wheeler track, and he has started on the walking trails).

anyway, i spotted this little turtle. i thought it was so cute, so i picked it up, knowing that the kids would love to see it, and brought it back with us on the 4 wheeler. of course, sis priss got all excited (she loves to "mother" anything that will let her, or that is too small to not allow her to) and the boy thought it was pretty cool, and went on popping wheelies with his 4 wheeler (typical). sooo, the first thing out of sis priss's mouth was "can we keep it?? P-L-E-A-S-E??? and in a moment of pure insanity, and a very GINOURMOUS brainfart, i said yes. i'm usually soooo good about saying "no" and how "they are much better in the wild where they belong..."etc... apparently my filtering system between my brain and my mouth was turned off, and before i knew it, or could even think about it, we had a pet. a pet named "sally".

"sally" was put into a hermit crab cage and given food (grass & leaves) and water. sis priss refused to let her down to walk, afraid that she might get hurt (even though she was born and lived in the woods and had made it so far...) and when she was put down to walk, it wasn't but a few seconds before she was swept back up and given a little scolding for either going the direction she was going, or going underneath the boat or truck or whatever happened to be there. sis priss thought it best to carry her around everywhere because she would be safer. i'll admit, i was feeling pretty good, thinking that a mum of the year award was pretty much a given.

moving on...we get home, sis priss still won't put the poor thing down, and when she does, "sally" makes a BOLT for the opposite direction. i mean turtles are slow movers. this one was fast. she wanted out of there, away from sis priss and her mothering. the next morning we found sis priss mothering her new pet (instead of getting ready for church). i knew we'd be gone quite a while, so i cut up an apple and some lettuce and put it in the cage for her to eat, and sis priss gave her fresh water. fast forward to the afternoon (mothers day, mind you) and we realized that "sally" hadn't eaten any of her food. i got on the computer 1. to find out what kind of turtle "sally" was and 2. to see what they ate. i found out that she was a box turtle (i had thought she was), and that they ate crickets and bugs, etc...in this article from the missouri conservation dept, it also said that almost always when kept in captivity, they die.

huge lump in throat.

it gave the reasons, and with each one i felt even more sick. i called j in and showed him the article, and he asked sis to come inside. we told her what we had read, and let her make the decision of what she wanted to do (knowing full well she would make the right decision. if it would've been the boy, we wouldn't have given him the option, knowing there was a good chance he would opt for the wrong decision,lol) and she started crying. hard. not because she was mad or angry, but because she loved this turtle sooo much.

she told us that it was a "special turtle" and she didn't want to let it go. well, apparently this was too much for j, because out of NOWHERE he blurts out, "don't worry, we'll get you a turtle this week at the pet store, one that can live with us!" SERIOUSLY??? i turned to him and shot him a look that said "you just did the same mistake i did all over again!!"

sis wanted pictures of her and "sally" before we let her go, so that she could look back and always remember her...( i didn't remind her that she only had the thing for 24 hours). so we all gathered together at the fence that separates our land from the field, and put "sally" down. j talked about "sally" and what a good turtle she was and what a good pet she was as sis priss hugged me, her head buried in my stomach, and her shoulders heaving. it was the kind of cry that is deep. it was a hard cry. not a tantrum, but one when you're losing something or someone. it was a loss cry. i bawled because it hurt me to see her hurting like that. she cried silently for the longest time. the only sound you heard was the long drawn in breath in between sobs. she asked if she could go in her room for a while to think about things. while she was gone, i emptied and put away the cage and talked with j. sis priss has sooo much love for animals. she seriously should be a vet when she grows up. it just broke my heart to see her like that. she came out after a while and was fine, quiet, but fine. and every so often, you would see her eyes well up with tears. she would just hug us.

that brings me to "turtle shopping". i thought it would be an easy thing. pet shop. check. turtle. check. pay for such turtle. check. one happy sis priss. check.

yeah. not at all. we went to every pet store in town.

they don't sell turtles. excuse me? seriously? they all told me one thing. "you'll have to buy it online."

since when did we enter the age of BUYING our PETS online??? our new TURTLE is being SHIPPED to us via UPS???? yeah. seriously. this is going to end up costing us so much more than we thought. and all because of me and my un-filtered big mouth.

here's sis priss below, notice the puffy red eyes and flushed cheeks...with "sally" right before her release. she didn't want to cry for the picture...she was such a trooper.

then a picture of "sally" leaving us. there is no doubt that any of us will ever forget "sally" and the lesson she taught us. ALL of us. especially about making sure our "filters" are always turned ON. ALWAYS...