Frogs and Other Girlie Things

I can vividly remember when the Ultrasound Lady at the doctor's office told us that we were going to have a girl. I can remember having these visions of dolls, and tea parties, and lots of things in the color pink.

Well, here it is, 10 years later, and it's remarkable how few of those things have been in our house with our little girl. Over the years people have bought her dolls and other "girlie" toys, and she'd play with them a little bit. But then she'd quickly get back to doing whatever non-girlie activity she could find.

Fast forward to this weekend as we were at a picnic event, and Little Smoot spearheaded an effort to catch tadpoles and other completely innocent forms of life you can find in the mud. She designed a special implement for the event, involving a styrofoam cup and a stick. Before I knew it, all of the kids had similar gear, and many of them were practically up to their necks in mud.

The end result was that we HAD to bring home a small herd of tadpoles, as well as a tree frog that was the size of a single molecule. Of course I warned her about a thousand times that no matter what we tried to do with them, they'd be dead within a day or two.

By the time we got home, the tadpoles were still in their temporary housing, swimming around and completely oblivious to the fact that they were under the care of a 10-year-old. The tree frog, however, had apparently realized it was being held against its will and managed to escape somewhere into my back seat. I have no idea where it is, but I doubt that it's living the good life amongst whatever crap is in my car.

And I hate to break it to Little Smoot, but I just had to give the tadpoles their official, solemn, Spiral Funeral down the Drainpipe of Doom. They're in a better place now.