Leo Addiction is out of hand

Well with all of this I did find out how to get a real good nights sleep lol I got up as usual Friday am at about 5 and did not go back to bed til last night. I always cuddle Emily around 8:30 til she falls alseep at 9 or so then I get up and do what I need to doand go back to bed with her later. Well I never got back up last night til the clock went off and I got up and looked around and thought heck. Thats the key skip the 3 hours a night just sleep 9 hours every 3 nights lol

I thought well know that the leos are better set up in the herp room in the basement, Emily still insist this morning to get them back up here she is not going down there. But heck if I was 3 I don't think Id way to be in an unfinised basement room for a few hours a day either. We had the same amount up here and she helped me but that I guess was OK, she could run around the bed, watch cartoons and play while she handed me paper towels and tossed the dirty ones for me. But my plan was always to get them back to the herp rooom once repaired.

They will not be moved back up, for 3 years everytime Rodney has a bad day his thing is the animals, thats all he can come up with to complain about and its always that they are taking over the house, my answer is always then fix the insulation down there so the room will hold heat and they are down for good, so I can't go back on that and they are honestly better set up.

Emily doesn't want to go down there and I really can't do it at night and get less sleep since I do the clothes, dishes etc after they go to bed so that all day is ours so adding that amount of work to each night is impossible.

The leos are really not that bad, but the mealie & super breeder bins, the cricket bins, the mouse breeders that go with that many leos adds a lot of time too.

I do get up around 4-5 am and unload the dish washer and put the clean clothes up from the night before's cleaning til I get Cody up at 7 so I am thinking that maybe I can do the leos then and maybe Emily will like helping with the dishes and clothes. She loves to help sort the dirty clothes and put them in the washer so we will see.

That will still mean that I need to cut down to about half so Ill most likely stick with the breeders and let the juvies I acquired for next years work go now.

She will go to shool in a year and a half then Ill have all day to work on them so cutting back now to make everyone happy is OK. Thats what moms do, they compromise to make the family happy.

So Ive stopped crying and will just have to figure out how many I can care for in the amount of time I will have per day my moving some chores around.

Wendy, I have a suggestion that might help also. I had a similar problem this last year. But mine was with Mendie. She just didn't like me spending so much time away. Anyway what I did was set up a TV and a DVD player for her. She is a movie buff. Anyway it has worked out really good. She can watch her movies while I take care of the leos. She has also got more involved than before since making this change. Might work for you to if you could come up with a reason for her to want to go down there with you. Just an idea. Hope it all works out .

Wendy,

I kind of understand what you are going through, I recently decided to very slightly downsize my collection. I ran out of enclosures and had to put 2 of my males in 6 quart containers for now. So, I have picked out 2 (Maybe more) that I need to sell. It was a hard decision, but I had to do it.

I couldn't imagine having over 100 geckos to care for, right now I have 57 including my fat tails, cresteds, and 1 gargoyle (Just found out its a boy!).

Good luck and choose wisely

Hang in there Wendy!!! My kids are similar in age to yours (mine are 7 & 4) although I only have 36 geckos, I understand it can be hard to get things done. I like Glenn's idea and I would bet that something along those lines will help you. Does your daughter like art activities? I was thinking that an unfinished basement would be a great place to set up an area for all those messy art activitites along with a nice big display area to show off the resulting masterpieces! If she has her own special place down there, it may be much more enticing.

It will get easier when they are both in school. Finding that balance between kids, work, house chores and our beloved geckos can be difficult, but it sounds like you are doing an awesome job!!

Wendy,

Since it sounds like she just doesn't like the basement, I like Glenn's idea about the tv. Another idea, would to let her decorate the walls in the herp room. Get some water paints, crayons, markers and make it her room to decorate. If you have drywall up and paint with a gloss paint, then use washable paints, crayons and markers, then you guys can clean it off and start all over again when she decides she wants a change.

Yes that is what I was trying to say. Felicia & Nancy have given you a couple of really good ideas! The TV thing was just my solution for my problem but I am sure you can come up with something that will give her a reason to go down there. Who knows she may even be asking you to go down there for a change!

Wendy, I sort of know what you're going through. I actually started in reptiles with chameleons. I had dozens of them and was just starting to have my first ones breed. Then "life" called, and I had to get out of it. When things settled down more I got back into reptiles again, and I suspect you'll be able to do the same when the time is right. Don't beat yourself up over it, you're just doing what any good mother would do given the circumstances. Give me a call later if you want.

It is an unfinished room, it used to be finished off but my dad rented it out when I was a kid and one of the renters left their dog in there all day it it tore up everything except the hard wood walls. I did think of getting some paper from the place I used to work at, they have billboard paper that is 5'x80" and I could lay it on the floor for her to mess with since there is no wall space to hang it.

The main this is the house is old as crap and it only has 2 double outlets, with the racks plugged in its fine but even adding 1 incubator blows all the power so I had to use a 3 30 foot extension cords to run from outlets on the other side of the basement for the incubators lol

Ill look and see if I can find another outlet down there that is not on the same line, there is a cool cutout in the wall where I had my TV til we moved to the new house wehn I was 12.

She is a cartoon buff, she will sit on the couch for an hour or 2 and not even blink when you talk to her, Rondey said, ah when she gets into the toons just go, she will be fine. She might be but Id not be fine leaving her alone at a TV. Even if she ingores Im there, I wouldn't leave her alone.

I was telling Rodney about the TV idea and could he find me a plug down there to work with, I hunted down the others so he went and he found one so we are going to try to see if we can splice the cable and run the TV so she will have it.

Then she was as she does every evening after dinner and bath sitting on the couch drawing and coloring, she's not good at it but heck she tries. She also likes those books that have the sticker pages and was playing with one of them.

So Rodney says, forget the TV let her color the racksa and put those stupid stickers all over them lol

We (Me and Emily) built them and we used plywood, I know it will only last a few years but at $11 for each rack on wood I figured that would do well for now and we could see where this goes long term with high dollar racks. So it will not matter what she does on them.

So I am going to take her to the $1 store tomorrow after we take Cody to school and let her get lots of markers and stickers and then see what she thinks of the leo room with some goodies for her to play around with!

sounds like a good idea, just got my baby tonight, and i can see how much time it takes, he had alot of them, and had to convert a whole room, i dont plan on getting that big into it, just a few for pets, and maybe breed a few times to see what i'd get but that's about it. mainly i'd just buy the color's i like from you guys .