Tortugita Tortugita!

So here's the story... Last Friday Jessica took Aeva and Emma Rae to the Park near our house, and on the way there they found a critter. Actually it was a baby turtle, which I later found out to be a red ear slider, to be exact. Aeva was ecstatic! Of course it had to come home! All she wanted to do that afternoon was play with the turtle; pick it up, drop it, throw it in the sandbox, pet it, give it food to eat, talk to it, etc...

The story becomes more complex, however, when Sabbath afternoon I was charged with watching the girls while my wife took a much needed nap. Aeva had the turtle in the sandbox and was busy making pretend turtle houses and roads for "Sandy." After a while Aeva decided she wanted to take her tricycle for a spin. Sure, why not? The turtle should be safe in a sandbox right? Wrong.

Upon returning to the house with the girls, Sandy was gone and Aeva was heartbroken. Furthermore, my wife had me in the hotseat as well for my grossly irresponsible behavior with such a valuable member of the family. The only available recourse was to mail order a look-alike red slider immediately, which arrived today. But oh no! We couldn't buy just one... we had to buy them in threes.

This morning Sandy magically reappeared in the sandbox to Aeva's delight. Astonishingly, two additional turtle were soon after discovered hidden in Mami and Papa's bedroom. Now there are three of these things. We'll certainly have to pawn off two of them as soon as possible on some other set of naive parents. As for Sandy, we are just hoping and praying that Aeva loses interest soon and we can return the turtle to her rightful place in nature.