Reptilian floral arrangements

Something caught my eye as I turned on the light in the bathroom last night.

Our glass shower door was open and a streak of bouncy brown was wriggling across the shower floor. My first thought was a cricket like the one I found trying to hide behind my sudoku book the other day, and although I am nicknamed after that sort of creature, I shriek whenever I have to deal with one in the house (they always jump toward you and not away, freaks me out). So I looked closer, but not actually close and it scrambled farther along and I wondered if it was a scorpion. I am shrinking with a cringe even thinking about that. There are plenty of houses that have little reddish scorpions lurking around in Phoenix, but I have never seen one in this house. Well I put my big girl panties on and looked closer still. It was a wide eyed little, tiny, cutie patooty baby gecko!

He had huge black eyes, translucent body and I could see that he was heaving with fear even though he was tiny.  I wrote about the geckos here once before and that was in September too, so this must be the season for baby gecks.

I didn't know what to do because although I like looking at geckos, I really wouldn't touch one unless it was life or death. Charles was already asleep, so I just shut the shower door really tight. Then I heard flipping around noises. I had panicked him and he was having a fit. So I took the beautiful red rose that was on my bathroom sink counter in a vase and dropped it into the shower, hoping it didn't land on him.  My thought was that he could hide under it and feel more secure instead of flopping around trying to climb the wall, which obviously was not workin for him.   I got curious later and opened the shower. He was no where to be seen, so I touched the rose stem...just a touch. SHOOP! Out he came scampering. So I quickly shut the door again and went to bed.

Thankfully I caught Charles this morning before he took a shower and told him about the gecko.  He loves catching them so he went right back and reported that it was not there. He put the rose on the back of the toilet tank, took his shower, then went to gather his things to go to a meeting.

Curious again....you've got to be curious when there's a gecko somewhere in your house and it is not where you left it....I looked into the shower and looked up on the ceiling and around the bathroom. Then I picked up the rose to throw it out when I saw a little head pop out and look right at me. (can you stand it, the babies are so cute) I guess he  either didn't trust Charles enough to make an appearance for him or maybe he was soundly asleep deep in between the lovely rose petals. (I kept thinking all day about how nice it would be to sleep between soft, velvety rose petals all night. ) By this time I was holding the rose over the bathroom sink and the gecko was trying to decide whether to  jump and run or stay and look at me.

He stayed long enough to get Charles in there, who took him out to the front porch to be free to eat bugs and climb the stucco walls at night and hopefully find his mother, who will scold him for sneaking off from her.

*Photos are from google, I didn't have time to get the camera.