This is the question I posed to myself just moments ago as I was standing in the kitchen when I heard something fall in the livingroom. I though that perhaps a remote had fallen or my iphone. What I did not think of was what had actually fallen…
Yes, that’s right, when I walked out into the living I saw our turtle, Lady, lying on her back next to the loveseat.
My first reaction was typical parent panic and I immediately picked her up and put her back in her tank as all I could think was that she needed to get back into the water stat. (don’t worry, I later remembered that our turtle is not a fish)
My second reaction was pride. Way to set a goal, work at it for a very long time and then accomplish it! Well done, Lady. (Meghan-it’s like she set her very own godish!)
My next reaction was curiosity. Will my tough love parenting approach work? (this is part of my post from August 20 about Lady’s attempted escapes)
As is usual with Brianne and Meghan co-parenting, we disagree on how to deal with this problem. Meghan gets nervous and tries to stop her from getting out. I say, let her fall and then she’ll learn not to do it again. Lisa’s concern is that she’ll fall out and die. But, that just proves my point. She certainly won’t do it again after that. I like to parent with tough love.
Much like when she was younger and would flip over and be upside down and unable to flip back over. Meghan would flip her back and I had to convince her to parent with tough love so lady would learn to do it herself. I want our turtle to be an indepedant woman and be able to take care of her self. It’s imporant for turtles, don’t you think?
Next I started to wonder, will this fall and probable concussion deter her from escaping in the future, or will she just continue to escape until she takes a bad fall and dies (as per Lisa’s worry) ? I must say I am intrigued. I am also intrigued to see if she will have any long-term effects from her fall. Does she have amnesia? If so, that throws a big kink in my tough love theory as she won’t remember the fall. Crap-it! I hope she doesn’t have turtle amnesia. She could also have a brain bleed that we won’t know about until much later. Oh dear! I guess I’ll have to get up every hour tonight to check her gait, grips and if she knows who she is, where she is and other pertinent information. This could be a long night of life saving for me.
Update: in the 20 or so minutes since this happened (it takes a long time to blog while simultaneously watching 2 football games) Lady has moved around in her tank, peeked her head above water to check the football scores but hasn’t attempted another escape. I’ll keep you updated.
Also, perhaps you are wondering why I didn’t take a picture of her laying on the ground. Obviously when I was thinking she coudln’t survive out of water, I didn’t think to grab a camera. I put her life first. (what a good mom I am). However, later I though about putting her back on the ground and taking a photo as only Lady and I would know that it was staged. But, then I thought that perhaps torturing an animal for the sake of a blog is a slippery slope. First it’s okay to re-enact falls and then, before you know it, chickens are being sacrificed for the sake of the blog and no one wants to go there. (that’s a logical conclusion, right?) I promise to do my best to capture the next fall on film.
P.S Meghan-sorry to tell you about this in a blog but I thought it would be funny for you to read about it late at work tonight rather than hear it from me over the phone.
