New Pet

Ian has a new pet.

Most people might trivialize the idea of a ladybug as pet, but Ian takes the whole phenomenon very seriously. We had some friends over this evening, and he asked his contemporary, a five-year-old girl, something along the lines of "Do you want to see my pet?"

He keeps the pet in a highly specialized container - one that might have been developed by Tupperware or The Pampered Chef or RubberMaid - it has that degree of sophistication, but it apparently was designed as a container for "pet" insects: a small metallic, almost stainless steel (but lightweight) cylinder with a plastic, transparent lid, constructed so that when you line up the container and the lid, depending on how you turn the lid, it can create small openings or larger ones, or have none, however you choose. Ian recognized the "breathing hole" potential of these openings, but when I set it up so that they'd be the size of a pencil eraser, rather than a pencil tip, Ian upbraided me, pointing out that the pet could easily escape through a hole of that size. I made the case that the hole was right next to the top of the container, and the ladybug surely couldn't climb that high, but he assured me that, in fact, they can climb walls and get out through that kind of a hole.

One problem was where to keep the ladybug. For awhile he was hiding it, because Mommy thought he should let it go outside (I'm not sure whether out of compassion or an antipathy for beetles), but he wanted to keep it, and specifically keep it inside the house.

Another problem was what to feed it. He knows that they like aphids, thanks to The Magic Schoolbus, but we don't know how to catch aphids, particularly in March in New Hampshire. Likewise, with a modicum of snow on the ground and absolutely nothing in bloom at this point, Ian was wondering where we might find vegetable life for the pet's consumption. Finally I suggested he might want to gather some grass; there are some thawed spots on our lawn, and there's still grass there leftover from last year. Needless to say, he jumped at that prospect.

Later, he reported the following:

"Daddy, I gave it some grass to chew. It will have to eat that until it's spring and we have enough leaves."

(March 2, 2010)