Apr 25, 2023
“OK,” I said, stalling. She looked at me, excited that I did not dismiss her request immediately.
“Once there was a Dragon named Dragon, and one day, his teacher was talking about getting a class pet.”
My kids both nodded their heads, full of hope and expectation, as I stretched my brain trying to think of something to say. What kind of pet would a dragon have? This was a lame start.
“And, um… Dragon said he had a little sister named Ashley that they could have as a class pet.” This was met with hearty laughter at first.
But then my Ashley said, “Mom, that can’t be right. A dragon can’t have another dragon for a pet.”
“You are right! And that is exactly what his teacher, Mrs. Dragoncita, said, too. She said–”
“Mom!” They both yelled.
“His WIFE’S name is Dragoncita. He can’t have a teacher named Dragoncita, too!” Ashley explained.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “Dragon is a little kid. He doesn’t have a wife.”
“Yes, when he grows up, he marries a dragon named Dragoncita, Mom. Don’t you remember?” Ashley asked.
Um. Nope. (How can they keep track of all this?)
I said, “So it is kind of funny that Dragon ends up marrying someone with the same name as his teacher, but it happens.”
They seemed skeptical but willing to let me go on. “Well, Mrs. Dragoncita did not think that Ashley would make a very good pet. She told Dragon he needed to think of a non-dragon pet.”
“Like what?” Samantha asked.
“Well, that is exactly what Dragon asked the teacher.
And she said he needed to think of something like a hamster or a hermit crab. And Dragon said that his sister Ashley was kind of like a
hermit crab because she kept her pockets full of different sized shells just in case. And then that gave Dragon another idea. He had things in his pockets that could be class pets!”
“What did he have in his pockets?” Ashley asked.
“Well… he pulled out everything from his pockets and placed them on the table. He had a stick, a dry leaf, a rock, and a dead moth. Dragon’s teacher asked why he had a dead moth in his pocket, and Dragon said it wasn’t dead when he put it in there.”
Then my kids whined and fussed over the poor moth who had died in Dragon’s pocket. And then I told them that that’s exactly why you should not put moths in your pockets. Samantha slid down in her chair just a little at that point.
And Ashley interrupted the story to say, “Mom, remember the reptile guy who came to our school and told us that when he was a kid, he kept snakes under his bed, and his mom didn’t know until he went to sleep-away camp and some of the snakes got out and his mom found them?”
“Yes, I remember.” That guy’s mom was a lot more understanding than I would have been. She bought him proper habitats for them. I would have sent all those snakes packing.
In the end, we did not finish the Dragon story. Maybe the next time my kids ask for a Dragon story, Dragon will bring in a snake for a class pet.
