Continuing my year of new things in the new year in lieu of resolutions, I give you Buddy the gecko, native to New Caledonia. Though I am partial to reptiles, having lizards crawl on me has been a long standing no-no. But this is a new year and Buddy, the neighbor kids’ pet molted yesterday was so soft. He did not appear threatening. With instructions worthy of Jack Hannah the old
est put the gecko on back of my hand.
Later we let him play on a tree truck (which they assured me he loved). Buddy is hand raised and doesn’t care too much for grass, though. Once he touched the lawn he just stared at me as I sat cross legged, then inched closer.
“He’s going to jump on me, ” I said.
He moved forward again and then leaped onto my knee, all the time staring at me with his unblinking eyes. To be fair, he has no eyelids.
“He likes you,” the kids assured me, “We’ve never seen him do that with anyone.”
Considering I had brushed with mint toothpaste to encourage nose kisses from the cats, it didn’t seem a good idea to get in Buddy’s face. So we let him play on the tree trunk a while and then his outing was over. Let’s hope he enjoyed it as much as the kids and I.
Buddy, Gold Crested Gecko (dalmatian harlequin)
A N H I N G A 
My kids love reptiles (well, two of the three). We’ve had geckos and bearded lizards and all sorts of reptiles in the house. I’m not good at touching them but when I was visiting my son, he brought out his snakes and I ended up holding one of them and letting it slither all over me. I don’t know that I’d do it again but I can say I did it.
When my daughter had a bearded lizard, she had to take it out to clean the cage and didn’t have a “holding” place for it so she brought it to me in my bedroom. Yeah, I ended up holding that, too, because she needed me to. Interesting what we do when we need to.
Okay, I’m ready to read about another first for you. Go do it and get it written!
The things we do for kids! 🙂
I’m keeping an eye out for new adventures. Hope one won’t be long in coming. Of course, a planned one would be more welcome than an accidental one. I may go to the mountains before too long. Bet there will be new things there.
My first pet as a kid was named Buddy, too; he was a parakeet.
Cool gecko–I hope you get more pictures, and he never tries to sell you car insurance with a cockney accent, like the Geico commercials.
Too late for the car insurance. Another gecko already sold me some. Not a bad choice, actually, can’t get a lower quote.
I’m wondering if he felt less threatening because he had just molted and was so smooth.