There is a four year old birthday coming to our house soon.

After some discussion, I thought it might be fun to get a small pet, something easy to care for, but not a fish or a rodent. Definately not a snake.

Enter the hermit crab. I took my son to two pet stores and we looked at the various displays. We got two books about hermit crabs and I have done lots of research online. It seems, there is more to hermit crab care than I thought, but it's pretty much making sure your set-up is adequate. After that it's seems easy.

The first hurdle: you should have more than one. Easily leapt. ThYO gets two and I get one (hey, come on, who is really going to provide care?)

Second hurdle: The stuff--10 gallon tank, humidity guage, temp guage, heating device, marine salt, substrate, lid, toys, food, etc. We can leap this too.

So right now, we have a "Crabitat" set up in ThYO's room. I found temp and humidity guages that are color coded so I can teach him how to tell if the climate is okay (needles should be pointing to yellow, not red or blue. We have gone through all our meals with quizzes about what crabs can eat (surpisingly a lot, they're scavengers). He has even named them (though the names change each day). He looks through his books and seems very excited. I even started a journal for him.

In about a month, there should be three new additions to our family.