It was worse than the bird outside our window

This is Clappers. Affectionately known as Mr. Crab around our house. Grandpa Flinn gave him to Jake when he was born and the two have been inseparable at nap and nighttime since he was a few weeks old. It's been very cute. Mr. Crab has always had a noise maker inside him that makes a clapping sound whenever you push on his front claw. Sometimes at night we hear him go off and think it is the funniest thing that Jake presses on that claw while he sleeps.

A slight problem arose with Mr. Crab when Jake started crawling and walking. Because then he could go to his crib and pull out the crab and carry him around the house. Which isn't a big deal, except it means that Mr. Crab gets pretty dirty. So, I started running him through the washing machine. And his little noise maker broke. Which was kind of sad, but we got over it. I'd much rather have a clean crab than a noisy one.

So, anyways, on Thursday I noticed that Mr. Crab needed another bath. He had strawberry juice, mustard and peanut butter on his little body. So, into the washing machine he went. And he came out clapping. He'd been healed! My dad thinks the water in the machine must have reminded him of the ocean so he started talking again. Well, he hasn't shut up since. Mr. Crab has been clapping himself silly for forty eight straight hours. 48! He kept me up half the night on Thursday and he kept Mike up last night. Jake WILL NOT sleep without him, so we couldn't just take him away and bury him somewhere. I still don't know how Jake got any sleep, but everytime I went to check on him he was sound asleep with a clapping crab underneath his body.

So, this morning Mike put him in the dryer (the crab that is). We thought maybe his insides needed to dry out to stop the mad clapping. Didn't work. He just sat in the dryer for thirty minutes clapping his little claws off. Really, it was driving us both crazy. After a few consultations, we decided to take drastic measures. And Mike performed open exo-skeleton surgery. He carefully opened a seam, cut a few wires and removed the offensive noise maker. Then he sewed Crab back up. And now there is a peaceful silence about our house that hasn't been around for two days. I think I'll go take a nap.