Have you cuddled your lizard today?

This is our little buddy, Andre the Dragon.

Andre came to live with us almost a month ago. He's a couple of years old, about 18 inches long (which is a good size for a Bearded Dragon!) and he's just about the sweetest little guy evah.

Andre doesn't do a whole lot, but he's just so cute doing nothing that it doesn't really matter. Even Nyk, who threatened to not come to our house anymore if I got a dragon, kind of likes him now. She doesn't touch him, but she likes to watch him. :P

Unlike her mom, Chaeli just loves Andre. She hasn't been able to hold him yet (because her hands are too tiny and his body needs a lot of support) but she pets him and talks to him every day. She likes to watch him eat crickets and worms, too!

The other day I had thawed out a frozen pinky mouse for a treat for Andre. I gave it to him in the morning and ran out of the room before he could tear it apart in front of me. Well, to my surprise he didn't eat it at all -- even when I put a couple of worms beside the pinky to draw his attention to it, he completely ignored it. It just laid there like it was sleeping. (wah!) When I got home at lunchtime, Nyk was here with the kids and Chaeli had already discovered the pinky. She called to her mom that Andre didn't eat his piggie yet, which kind of freaked Nyk out a bit. :D Chaeli showed me the "pig" when I got in the house and I told her that it was a little mouse, but it wasn't real and it was just like a candy for Andre. She said, "no, it's not a candy. It's a little pig! Look at his little tail and his hands and his eyes! He's sleeping! When he wakes up I'll hold him and pet him and he'll like me!" uh-oh.

Suddenly, Andre figures it out and takes a stab at the mouse. I grab Chaeli and we run out of the room. I distract her for awhile with cupcakes (po-cakes) in the kitchen but soon realize that she has gone back into Andre's room. Now, I have no idea if he'll eat the whole pinky at once (it was tiny) or if there will be mouse parts lingering in his dish so I go running to see if Chaeli is freaked out. I bump into her coming out of Andre's room.
"Are you okay?", I ask.
"Yeah, I'm okay." She answers, all la de da. "Andre ate the pig."
"Oh, it's just pretend." I say, all damage-control. "It's just like a candy for Andre. Just a pretend mouse."
"No", she informs me, "It's not pretend. It's a real pig. And he ate it." And off she went to play.

She is the coolest.