The newest member of our family

This is Buddy Barat-Huffman.  He's the newest member of our family.  Jack got the wild hair that he wanted a pet lizard.  I gave him a research project to do, in the hopes it would deter him from the idea.  How you ask?  Well, Jack doesn't like school related things, and research is school related.  It requires him to write down things and read information which he doesn't like to do.  He's actually not bad at it, but he just doesn't like to do it.  So I gave him a list of possible lizards and some questions about how to care for the booger.  I didn't have the old excuse that we'd given him when it came up that he wanted a turtle: That Jason couldn't have a new pet in the house for at least 2 years after his transplant.  That's how we'd deterred Jack before.

He not only found the information but organized it in such a way that he could tell me which lizard would be the best for beginners.  We decided on the Bearded Dragon.  So I posted on Facebook that we'd made the decision to get the lizard and one of my teaching friends responded that her daughter had had one and would be excited to help us out.  This woman had taught with Jason when he was in Richardson.  It turns out he'd had the woman's daughter when she was in 5th grade.

So the daughter came by today and we went looking for our Buddy.  I thanked her for helping us with the search and she said she felt it was like doing something in return to Jason for helping her in 5th grade.  It was kind of like payback, but in a positive way. So, in gratitude for helping us, the kids and I decided to hyphenate Buddy's last name and include the girl's last name. 

I'm actually okay with the "bearded dragon".  He sits on my lap and climbs everywhere.  I still get nervous when he starts to crawl away, but he never goes far.  I'm just a little nervous about feeding him crickets.  But hopefully soon, we'll be able to feed him more veggies than meat. 

Here's to Buddy!  Welcome to the family.