I wanted to write a poem for today—as I have each Friday, but I have these hermit crab pictures that my kids are dying to share with everyone and I just couldn’t rouse the inner muse on hermit crabs.
In Galveston, I grudgingly took the kids down to the beach (Is that what they call it in the gulf? There’s not much sand and the water is red-brown with vicious little prickly seaweed floaties that attack your ankles with each wave). Immediately, Ransom is on alert for wildlife, and he finds a hermit crab within the first five minutes.
Yay us. Now we have a purpose! The kids split up digging into the sand with their toes, feeling for the hard-backed shells that house the little varmints. One by one, the lucky crabs are dragged from the gulf into the warm puddle a few feet away where they scuttle furiously about, seeking cooler water or shade.
Cora Jo says, “Momma! We have a hermit crab sanctuary! Look!” 
Sure enough there are quickly seven or eight hermit crabs in their puddle. I refrain from asking her what she thinks the word ‘sanctuary’ means if being tussled around by a child and thrown into a hot mud puddle is a ‘sanctuary.’
“Momma, can we…”
“No,” I interrupt.
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!”
“No, you can’t take one home. Not one. Not even a tiny one. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in your pocket. Not in a box. Not with a fox.” (random Dr. Seuss rhyming for full child engagement)
“Oh, I guess you did know.”
I smile and nod. Repeat conversation with each child, adding special assurance to Jet that his friend Kaden back home can see the hermit crabs in pictures instead of in person.
The hermit crabs kept them busy for quite a while. They were feeling like the Steve Erwins of the hermit crab world, until a kid ran up the beach with a bag over his shoulder. He plopped down about ten feet away and began pulling shells out of his bag. My kids tried to just glance casually at him counting, but pretty soon we were all riveted. One, two, three,… he started counting silently after twenty. He had them all in neat rows, and by that time, Ransom was full-on gawking. “Do you see this?” he asked incredulously, turning to me, to Papa, to the girls. The kid must have had close to forty hermit crabs. His mom came over beaming and took his picture with them.
“Whaddya gonna do with them?” Ransom asked.
“Throw ‘em back,” the kid answered looking directly at his mom. She was nodding vigorously. I was nodding vigorously.
They started throwing crabs back into the gulf, and I wondered if a day in the hands of small children felt a little like the Schlitterbahn for hermit crabs.
And I checked pockets, towels, bags, and coolers VERY carefully before heading home.