There are 44 sight words that are required for kindergarten that Kylie needs to know. She's also been bugging M and I about wanting a pet turtle like the one we had before (we had a small box turtle named Turbo way back in 2004). Michael told her we'd get her a turtle as soon as she knew all of her words. Sounds pretty easy right? Wrong.
The other night she came running into see me and told me she'd read all of her words and she was ready to go get a turtle! The next morning while we were getting ready for school that's all she talked about. After dropping her off, I called every pet store in this area and the only thing I could find were Sulcata tortoises for $130 (!!!!!) that grow to be about 300lbs. (!!!!!). Not a chance we're getting one of those guys!! Went online to discover that turtles and tortoises are really, really expensive!!! In CA and NV it was easy to find an exotic pet store...they were everywhere. This isn't the case for SW Missouri!
After school we went to 3 different pet stores and looked at snakes and lizards and fish, puppies, rabbits, ferrets...pretty much everything except for turtles. A nice guy at Petland even let Kylie pet a baby water dragon and then showed her how well they can swim...and then we saw how fast it can run and vetoed that idea. BUT the nice guy said he could order a Russian tortoise so we could come check it out. The good thing about Russians is the males only get to be about 8 inches. Nice and small! Plus they don't need a lot of protein which means no crickets or mealworms or earthworms!
Sooo...the choices we have are as follows:
1. Find a box turtle in the wild and bring it home...which I don't think is a very good idea. I'd like to find a captive bred animal. BUT the wild ones are free and relatively easy to find...they're always crossing the road!
2. Get the Russian tortoise from Petland for $60 and make Kylie happy, but put money into the pockets of people who sell pure-bred puppies (that probably come from puppy mills...we are in Missouri afterall) for about $600+ each.
3. Not get a turtle at all which would suck for Kylie! And wouldn't be very nice on our part since we promised.
Anyway, here's a photo of Turbo before we let her go. She was a cute little thing. Wish she'd come back...
I'll keep ya posted on the turtle saga!
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