And then there were one...

We had a grasshopper tragedy here last night. One of Courtney's grasshoppers died. :)

We got home from our family party yesterday and Matt and I both noticed that Courtney's littler grasshopper wasn't moving or doing anything. He was kind of on his side in her pile of grass. He is usually on the ceiling of her terrarium or someplace odd, so Matt and I both thought something not so good was going on, but we didn't mention it to Courtney.

She must not have seen them because as we were getting Christian ready for bed, Courtney appeared in his doorway with her eyes full of tears.  We asked her what was wrong (because we figured it had to do with the grasshopper) and she said, "My grasshopper is dead. He's not eating and he's not moving!" (insert sobs here!)

We both went and gave her a big hug and went downstairs to see.  Sure enough, the grasshopper had not moved since we saw him earlier.  We asked Courtney if she had fed him and she said, "Yes, I got some grass and he didn't grab on like usual."  Courtney usually gives the grass right to the grasshopper and eats it right away. She must've tried this and he didn't respond.

We took the grasshopper out of the terrarium and set him on a paper plate. We tried to get him to move, which he did a little, and we gave him a little bit of lettuce to eat.  He did this half-heartedly. But through all of this, Courtney is crying her little heart out! 

We put a cup on top of him and told her that we will know more in the morning. We put her to bed because it was almost 10:15. I think she was pretty tired too.  I think she cried herself to sleep.

This morning we got up and Mr. Grasshopper was not moving at all. He had ate half of the lettuce piece and then died overnight.  Courtney shed a few tears, but nothing like last night. 

She has been smiling all morning and picking the dead grasshopper up and looking at him.  I guess she had promised him that she would not put him in her bug box, so we're not sure what we are going to do with him. 

We still have the mama grasshopper and three sets of babies to keep the generations going!

Courtney got this grasshopper from bug camp at the beginning of August. She has had him almost four months.

Now that we only had one grasshopper left, Matt thought it was a great time to clean out her terrarium. So he did that and picked out all the eggs and put them together in a cup and then put the bigger female grasshopper back in the terrarium. I am really anxious to see these hatch in a few months.  But now we have a widow grasshopper, which the girls think is pretty funny.

May he rest in peace, this one little grasshopper sure made one little girl so happy!