Maxwell Loves Reptiles: He turned 9 & his FIRST pet!!

Maxwell turned 9 this June and I cannot believe that this is his last year as a single digit child. 

Currently, Maxwell is into video games, particularly Gorilla Tag. He loves reptiles, dinosaurs still and enjoys drawing and anything artistic. His favorite movie currently is Inside Out 1 and 2. 

What started off as asking 1 friend to come visit for his birthday turned into a full-on party with a few friends, cake and even the one drink he's been asking to try for months...Prime. This is a no-go in my house of non-toxic food/drink. But I did let him get this for his party, as a special occasion. I think that may have been the highlight of the party. Ha ha. 

We also decided that this would be the time to get Maxwell his first pet. With his love of reptiles, we embarked on the mission to find the easiest and friendliest lizard we could find. To which we were pointed to the Leopard Gecko. Now, I will say, I think that Tyler was almost more excited for this than Maxwell. While it was a surprise, Maxwell had been asking for a pet for a few years. It was that or a iphone and a cell phone was NOT gonna happen quite yet. 

In typical Tyler fashion, he did a thorough investigation into everything that leopard geckos entail and ordered everything under the sun for this new pet. Boxes upon boxes kept arriving at the door and after the front door started looking more like a wall than a door, I finally questioned Ty as to what exactly he bought for this lizard. lol. Turns out that a simple lizard isn't so simple after all. An entire live ecosystem, 4 lights of different temps, a temp laser gun,  large encasement with stand, numerous gadgets that I'm still not even sure what they are for, later...and we had everything we needed besides the actual gecko. 

Tyler couldn't order from a pet store within driving distance. No, that would have been too simple. He ordered from a professional breeder in AZ and had it overnighted to us. I'm starting to think that Tyler is lot more like Clark Griswold than I ever realized. Even that shipment process was an escapade. While it was super hot in both AZ and TX, the breeder assured us that if she shipped at night and it arrived the next morning, it would be fine as it is sent with cooling box. When Ty arrived early the next morning at the pick up station, he was dismayed to find that the lizard was NOT in fact there. After calling the breeder and assessing, we found out it was delayed in Tennessee. So at this point we didn't even know if we were going to get this gecko here alive. We had not told Maxwell about his present yet, so that was the only positive aspect to the whole debacle. 

On the next day, Ty showed up yet again at the pick up station and thankfully.....Ms Nelly aarrived and was alive!! We brought her back and set her all up in her new home. Ty spent the next 2 weeks fussing over her and making sure she had everything she could possibly need. When Maxwell got out of school that day, he was elated by his new little friend. He named her Nelly and she's been happy at home since. Although she is nocturnal and doesn't do too much, Maxwell finds having her to be a fun first and loves holding her and helping to feed her the mealworms.