Me and Turtles (by Jane)

I have this relationship with my turtles that is very intense. We received these 3 lovely gifts from our friend, Joy, who wanted to give each of the kids .

First the turtles weren’t eating, weren’t moving, seemed to be dying. I was trying to feed them the teeny store-bought turtle food pellets. So it was this revelation that I could search outside for live insects that we thought they might like. Centipedes were about the only insect around that were plentiful, easily catch-able, big enough to make it worth it (as opposed to the ubiquitous ants), and didn’t jump after you caught them (like crickets). I had this revelation one morning after a big night-time rainstorm. I originally thought I would find a million worms, but there seem to exist very, very few worms in China. So centipedes it was.

At first I enjoyed gathering centipedes. Armed with chopsticks and a glass jar with lid, I felt purposeful, with the mission of saving my poor turtles’ lives. The medium-sized turtle, Franklinstein, or Speedy, as he came to be known, gobbled them up like a hunter worth his weight in gold. The way he shoots his neck and head forward with precision instills in me a relieved feeling that I am not the object of his aim, and that I am about 200 times his size. Franklinstein can down about 8 centipedes in one feeding.

The baby turtle, Franklin also, would have none of the centipedes. I resorted to chopping up the centipedes into barely visible particles, trying to stuff them into his mouth. Did you know that centipedes make a crunching noise when they’re chopped into pieces? For that matter, did you know that centipedes make that same crunching noise when a medium-sized, expert hunter turtle named Franklinstein crushes them with his powerful jaws?

Anyways, the baby, whom I call “Little Guy,” only tolerates being force-fed the store-bought turtle pellets. You can usually get them into his mouth when you see him, plain as day, perched on top of a rock, craning his mouth open as wide as he can. He’s practically guilt-tripping you with these silent screams of, “Why haven’t you fed me?! I’m so hungry!” Yes, you respond to his supposed despondence, only to find that he immediately shuts his mouth and won’t let a smidgeon of that store-bought food pellet into his mouth. And if you do get it in, he tries to spit it out. Out comes that turtle tongue, pink and thick, shoving the food right back out. The way to win is to dip the chopstick into water, and with the lone drop that falls off the suspended chopstick, to plumb wash that stuff down into his belly. You will not starve under my watch!

If you can’t tell yet, the amount of time spent with turtle care ranks up there with the amount of time I’ve spent nursing my three children these past almost 7 years. Dave at first was quite upset with my dereliction of duties such as helping put children to bed at night, feeding them in the morning, getting out the door, etc. After a couple of weeks, however, he has, too, been hooked. He takes particular pride in his innovation of using clear plastic tweezers in order to be able to successfully force-feed Little Guy. He can get 7 or 8 pellets all the way down him in one sitting! Most I’ve gotten is 3 or 4.

After the initial soaring spirit of being somebody’s savior wore off, I began to find the food-gathering and feeding times to be a bit troublesome. Weren’t these supposed to be the boys’ turtles, anyways? My skills with feeding Little Guy seemed to be waning. And I realized one big thing: the centipedes really stink. So I’m looking for centipedes, inevitably attracting the attention of our many neighbors. I know the Chinese sentences for: “We have 3 turtles. They can eat these [centipedes].” But something smells! Have I forgotten to put on deodorant? Has the heat really gotten to me that much? Is it the sewer system malfunctioning (again)? No! It dawned on me slowly that it’s the dang-blasted 100-legged creatures I’ve been deftly finding under the purple, pointy bush’s leaves spilling out onto the cement. I resort to holding the jar at a distance behind me when talking with neighbors. Or I set the jar aside for a few precious moments of fresh air. Wow. I’m calling China’s non-caterpillar-scented air fresh. Now that’s saying something.

I persist in my new-found motherhood status of a non-mammal. My most recent feeling is the kind you get once you’ve broken an initial cycle of laziness. It’s kind-of like meditation, which can be difficult to get into. But after you’ve done it for a while, it’s just part of your routine, is something you rely on, and is almost comforting. I get to go outside with a child or two, usually Zekey, who zooms around on his scooter while I squat up and down our street, chatting with neighbors, holding a glass jar with a squirming, moving, alive layer at the bottom, at a safe distance. I know my turtles will appreciate it. “My” turtles.