One of Norah's friends gave her two hermit crabs. The girls have been enjoying them. Norah calls the crab with the pearl shell "Shiny" and the one with the painted face on its shell "Molly."

We're keeping the crabs in the bathroom since that room has the highest humidity in the house (which is good for the crabs) and since, when the crabs were in their cage on top of her dresser, Norah couldn't sleep and was convinced that someone was outside her window walking in the brush since she heard "scraping and crunching."


We let the crabs out of their tank to crawl around in the bottom of the tub a few times a day. We've been spraying them with a bottle of spring water. They seem to enjoy it and come out of their shells when they feel the "rain." We don't use any tap water since it's chlorinated and from what we've read online, that's supposed to be bad for the crabs.

One of the crabs seems to enjoy walking up the incline at the back of the tub. He walks forward, slides back, walks forward again, slides back... almost like he's on a treadmill. It's pretty funny to watch.

Norah's been busy building hideaways and hills and mazes for the crabs out of Legos. We coaxed Shiny to climb this hill by putting a little food at the top.


We came back about half an hour later and he had found the "house" Norah had built and gone inside. It looks as if Norah will have to build another house for Molly, too.


Both crabs seem to enjoy crawling into the "pool" of spring water that collects around the incline by the drain after we've sprayed them enough.


I think we've found the perfect pets. They're very low maintenance and what little maintenance they require, Norah is more than capable of doing herself.

I ordered Norah the book "Hermit Crabs for Dummies." Not that Norah is dumb, but Dummies guides are the best guides out there, in my opinion. Norah's asking tons of questions that I can't answer, so the book can't come too soon. It'll be fun to learn more about crabs along with her.