Bad Mommy

Okay, so I plea the fifth. Isn't that the "I am and idot" loop hole? At any rate, I am a bad mommy. So Jack came bounding down the stairs, hermit crab shell in hand. "Look, Mom, she is molting." "I don't think hermit crabs molt. I think she is dead." You have to understand he was holding this shell up to me with this white body squiggling in front of me. I was so creeped out. Poor guy, Jack tossed her in the trash about in tears. Of course, at bed time, he asked when he could go get a new crab. At pet day the next day, Jack brought two crabs and told his class that the third one, the littlest, died the night before. They all shared their sympathies. To make a long story short, jump forward to today. I am curious about cleaning the sand before I put the crabs back in their aquarium. So I Goggle: how do I clean sand for hermit crabs. I get a great site and start reading. Oh, man, they do molt. Oh, my gosh, the crab isn't dead! So I go to the trash which needed to be taken out anyway. I see the shell squished to the side about half way down. It wiggles. Oh no! I pull out the poor thing. I am squimish. Why the heck am I squimish when I think something might be dead? I place the crab in a bowl of distilled water to bath it, something I learned on the site I Goggled. And sure enough, a litle whitish lavendar body crawls out. Three days. Poor dear. I am a horrible mommy. I threw out our pet. After fixing up the cage, I settle the three crabs in and try to figure out how to explain my ignorance to my kiddos. Jack was thrilled. He didn't even ask for an apology. No, bad mommy saved the crab. I haven't seen the crab move all evening. I only prey she is simply frightened and not shocked to death. Lesson one thousand and twenty in the book of parenting: hermit crabs molt. Read the manual. Lesson one thousand and twenty one: though sons sometimes think you are a superhero, they also know you make mistakes becuase you are really just an ordinary human. Be honest. They forgive.