Dante, my friends, is this baby >2.0 ounce little tortoise that my nieces and nephew adopted as their own baby, hereby making me a grandma-in-law. They are not sure if it is male or female, but having christened it with such a mighty Ninja Turtle name, this little thing will, for sure, go far.
Dante is probably less than the size of my (small and delicate) palm, yet it has managed, in 6 short months, to have everyone in the family eating out of the palm of its very, very small and delicate little paw.
Life now revolves around Dante – how to keep him warm, how to keep him cool, how to grow organic grass for him, how many dandelions he ate in one sitting, and how to improve on his next living structure. It already has 4 “houses”.
When UPS delivers something to my brother’s house, it is invariably something that one of the “parents” bought for it.
Co-parenting between the 3 young adults in this day and age means that they will obsess over what its poo looks like, how many times it goes, and whether or not they should help it along when it trails its excretion behind him.
Did you know that there is a resource site called tortoise.com?
The stories are hysterical but the important thing that we learned from the “grandparents ” – my brother and my long suffering sister-in-law – Dante took my nieces and nephew out of their absorbing and stressful jobs and school work, gave them a new focus, and brought them even closer together.
It taught them to think for and on behalf of a helpless little animal and now the rest of the family have a very clear view of what type of parents they will be like when they have human babies of their own. Does the meme “helicopter parents” ring a bell?
Check out Dante’s Monday morning calisthenics video below – “Does anyone else’s Monday feel like a struggle?”
Oh, and if you are grinning right now, let me tell you that Dante has his own Instagram account. You can follow it on Instagram. I am not sure if it is on Facebook yet…..
So, here you go, Dante is the Little Tortoise Who Could …. and did bring others out of their shells.
Fun! Fun!