Introducing Spots, the leopard gecko

Picture it: 

3 years ago. A small boy in green glasses and an eyepatch, a tiny baby and a frazzled Mama walk into a Petco to buy dog food. The 3 year old wants every.single.animal that he sees. Despite the Mama's constant reminders that he already has 2 dogs AND a baby brother, he wants more. 

"You are not old enough for any of these animals yet."

"How old do I have to be, Mama?" 

"I do not know, "says the distracted Mama as she searches for the cheapest dog food option. 

"Hi, pet store man, how old I do I have to be to have a lizard?"

"Hey buddy, I would say about 6.*" 

And, so began our adventure into life with a reptile aka Anderson's Happy Place. 

*Also, thank you pet store man for planning my future WITHOUT consulting me. I think the key word in this story has already been mentioned: man. 

Perhaps there are some kids who would have forgotten a passing conversation with a Petco employee, but definitely not Anderson. He has been saving his money in this Batman piggy bank since then and has been hard core asking about the lizard daily (minutely? secondly? are those words?) since he turned 6. 

We told him he had to save enough money to buy the cage. They are normally $70 but, luckily for this kid, they were on sale the day we happened to go and check them out!

Also, teaching this boy about sale prices might be my favorite thing. 

Too bad the original pet store man was not there when we paid so that he would have had to count out the baggies of nickels and pennies that was used as payment. 

We actually bought the cage a few weeks before the lizard because it was on sale. We were in there so often looking at them that a few employees came up to him and asked, "Have you saved enough yet?" It was pretty sweet and also borderline embarrassing because...maybe we went there a few times too many. 

The BIG day finally came and I thought Anderson was going to lose his mind from excitement. He knew exactly which one he wanted because of the stalking. 

Everyone loves my forced posing. 

We have been talking about this for so long and, for Anderson, taking the gecko home in this box was one of the things he has been looking forward to for awhile. Every time we went to Petco, he would look at the little boxes and talk about the whole process. 

He is in charge of helping to take care of it-feeding it mealworms and cleaning out his cage. 

I consider myself a pretty savvy Boy Mom. I have caught crawfish with Kroger bags, salamanders with my bare hands, all kinds of things in nets, touched every manner of insect and most creatures, but....standing in Petco, listening to the reptile lady tell me about this cricket feeding process, I felt a little sick. I didn't realize they were going to actually be ALIVE crickets that we have to coat in calcium powder first. And, they eat a lot. And, they poop out all of those calcium crickets. The whole thing was giving me the heebie jeebies.

Luckily, Brandon had no problems taking care of the cricket/calcium power shaking. 

And, here he is-Spots!

Pure happiness right here. 

Let's hope we can keep this guy alive, now.