Monday, October 6, 2008

A New "Pet" Of Sorts

Months and months ago, I found an ant farm on clearance. I've never seen an ant farm in person before, and it looked pretty fun, so we bought it, and sent out for the ants. A few weeks later, we received a notice that it was too hot to mail the ants, so it would be a while.

We waited and waited and waited. And forgot all about the ants, to tell you the truth.

Then last week, the ants came!

It was still very hot, and most of them (unfortunately) died en route. However, 4 are still living.

We set up our ant farm, dumped them in, and fed/watered them. It turns out that ants are actually super cool. And they are the best baby-sitter ever.

Ants on Day 2

We sit around and watch these guys a lot. They are truly fascinating. I was even late picking up Adam from school last week because Grace and I were staring at them. Which is beyond pathetic. They are super strong and intelligent and I never realized what hard workers they are. It's just amazing seeing these little bugs haul huge pieces of dirt, care for each other, build tunnels, and tear apart food. Fascinating.

Ants on Day 8

And I completely and totally love them because Adam and Grace will just watch them and watch them while I do exorbitant, selfish things for myself...

... like showering.

Which I'm sure everyone appreciates.

5 comments:

Grammy Suzzy said...

Hooray for a good pet...no clean up of "messes", etc. Do your ants have names?

the W* family said...

Adam has named one "Escapee" because it spent the first few days trying to escape, and another "Nurse" because it spent the first few days trying to bring back the dead ants.

But, now that they are all just digging and eating, it's impossible to tell them apart. :)

Casey and Brynn said...

You are a cool Mom!

Grammy Suzzy said...

Adam, what do you feed the ants? Is there special food, or do you just give them leftovers from dinner? Oh, I guess that would make a very messy farm, wouldn't it.

peachytiffers said...

We have the same one. JJ's teacher got it for him and also one for the class. She said that they all died off pretty fast and she was pretty bummed. We haven't tried ours out yet. Anything that keeps kids busy, even for a few minutes is a favorite of mine!