Sunday morning I was privy to a surprise waiting for me upstairs. Not a planned surprise, like breakfast in bed or anything, but a surprise nonetheless.
My youngest adopted a crayfish from his teacher after the students finished their science unit. (The crayfish would have been destroyed otherwise, so the teachers let the children apply to adopt the crayfish.) This was right near Thanksgiving.
So I'm downstairs and I hear him yelling, panicked, "Mom! There's something wrong with Sarah!" (The original name was going to be Spike, but then he found out it was a girl.) I yelled up and asked him what was wrong. He proceeded to tell me that something was hanging from her tail. At which point I go up to investigate.
I get to the tank and Sarah is hidden away in her little cave, so I lift the cave up to get a look at her. Surprise, surprise...she's got a brood of eggs tucked under her tail! Like 50 of them. (We don't know how long they've been there because Sarah is always in her cave and crayfish are nocturnal, anyway.)To which my first thought was "What?!?" My second thought was to call the pet store to see what we should do. My third thought, teacher that I am, was to do some investigating online about crayfish and take some pictures to share with his teacher so she could share with the class; it's not something they ever get to see during their unit. So then I talked to my son about what was going to happen and the look on his face was priceless. He wasn't worried or anything, it was more like shock mixed with awe. We joke with him that he's going to be a grandfather. =)
Some research, a phone call, and a trip to the pet store later, Sarah is now in a breeding tank that separates her from the eggs once they hatch, otherwise she will eat her young. So now the whole household is waiting like expectant parents in the hospital, even walking softly and taking care not to bump the table the tank is on so we won't give Sarah "mommy stress."
It's been an adventure.
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