Thursday, September 27, 2007
The Cycle of Life
My friend Robin, the mother of three boys, warned me this would happen. Before I had kids, I'd always sworn there'd be no bugs, reptiles, or rodents in my house. At least not voluntarily. She assured me that that would change when I had kids. That I would change.
The day Lee and the boys caught the tadpoles in the lake, I discovered that Robin was right. Mind you, these were not the tadpoles of my own childhood--black specks the size of pencil erasers that we found in ditches on rainy summer afternoons and condemned to death in makeshift "ponds" dug into the gumbo soil of our back yard. No, these were tadpoles on steroids, with inch-long bodies and twice as much tail. Humongous bullfrog tadpoles. Max began to draw pictures of them.
"Can we keep them, mom? Please! Please! Please!" Like his father, Max was persistent in his tenacity.
I relented. "But we have to find out how to take care of them, and next Saturday we'll bring them back to the lake to release them."
In honor of their spotted tails, Max dubbed them Speckle and Speckly. Experienced horsemen give newcomers to the horse business a piece of sage advice: Never name a horse. An emotional attachment begins with a name, transforming farm animal into family member in a flash of anthropomorphic magic. We now had two additional pets.
We awoke the next day to find that Speckle had sprouted tiny webbed feet overnight. I think I was more excited than the kids.
Back home, on the internet, I was dismayed to learn that the tranformation from tadpole to bullfrog can take between one and three years. "Years?!," I gasped. "I've got 2 kids, 2 dogs and 11 horses to care for. I'm unable to make a commitment to attend a child's birthday party next week. How could I possibly agree to care for yet another animal for three years?!" I warned the children not to get too attached.
The next day I found myself at Petco, purchasing a shallow aquarium and tadpole food. The boys lined half the aquarium with rocks so that the Speckle and his colleague could crawl out of the water when their lungs demanded air rather than water.
Speckle grew knees. Knees! Out of nothing, Speckle suddenly found himself with bones and joints and gross motor skills.
The week his class studied frogs, Boo took the tadpoles to school for show and tell. Other teachers asked if we could bring more tadpoles from the ranch to share with their classes. I promised to try.
At home, the boys created stations for the tadpoles, just like at school. Rock station. Eating station. Water station.
In the meantime, Speckle grew front legs. Then he climbed out of the water and onto the rock station in the morning. As his tail began to disappear, I tried to prepare the boys for the inevitable.
"Right now, Speckle is using up his tail in order to grow into a frog. But when his tail is gone, he'll need to eat live animals like mosquitos and worms. We can't have live bugs flying around our house, so this weekend, we're going to have to take Speckle back to the ranch and release him in the lake. That way, Speckle can make babies, and we can catch them next summer and watch more tadpoles transform into frogs!" Max was forlorn, but he understood. We began to get ready to tell Speckle goodbye.
So I was unprepared for the commotion from the kids' room when they got home from school today.
"Mom, Speckle's dead!"
"What?"
"His eyes are blue, and he was floating upside down in the water."
Max came into the room, holding the limp frog in his palm.
Boo trudged along side his brother. "This is so sad."
I controlled myself. I didn't shriek about what horrible germs might even now be migrating from Speckle to my older son. Nor did I fling the lifeless amphibian down the nearest commode and flush him into oblivion.
This was an important milestone: the death of their first pet. Marking the passing of its life deserved respectful treatment.
"Boys, we need to go into the back yard to bury Speckle."
Max said solemnly, "I'll find a shovel."
Boo said, "We need to have a ceremony."
Max replied, "What's a ceremony?"
I chimed in. "We need to honor Speckle, and thank God for sharing him with us for a little while."
Boo continued, "And we need to say the good things we'll always remember about him."
(How does my three year old know such grown-up things? I swear to you that we do not take him to funerals for recreation.)
Max deposited Speckle on a soft cushion of toilet paper. Then I disinfected their hands. Several layers of skin later, the boys chose a flower bed and dug a shallow hole. I gently placed Speckle in the ground and covered him with soil.
"God, thank you for your amazing creature, Speckle. We're so glad we got to know him and care for him and watch him transform from a tadpole to a frog. Speckle was a good frog, and I hope he had a good life. We will miss him. Thank you for all your miraculous creations, even us. Amen.......Boys, is there anything you'd like to say now about Speckle?"
Boo smiled. "Nice ceremony, mommy."
They bolted back into the house to build robots or draw racecars or make an animal parade.
R.I.P., Speckle.
The day Lee and the boys caught the tadpoles in the lake, I discovered that Robin was right. Mind you, these were not the tadpoles of my own childhood--black specks the size of pencil erasers that we found in ditches on rainy summer afternoons and condemned to death in makeshift "ponds" dug into the gumbo soil of our back yard. No, these were tadpoles on steroids, with inch-long bodies and twice as much tail. Humongous bullfrog tadpoles. Max began to draw pictures of them.
"Can we keep them, mom? Please! Please! Please!" Like his father, Max was persistent in his tenacity.
I relented. "But we have to find out how to take care of them, and next Saturday we'll bring them back to the lake to release them."
In honor of their spotted tails, Max dubbed them Speckle and Speckly. Experienced horsemen give newcomers to the horse business a piece of sage advice: Never name a horse. An emotional attachment begins with a name, transforming farm animal into family member in a flash of anthropomorphic magic. We now had two additional pets.
We awoke the next day to find that Speckle had sprouted tiny webbed feet overnight. I think I was more excited than the kids.
Back home, on the internet, I was dismayed to learn that the tranformation from tadpole to bullfrog can take between one and three years. "Years?!," I gasped. "I've got 2 kids, 2 dogs and 11 horses to care for. I'm unable to make a commitment to attend a child's birthday party next week. How could I possibly agree to care for yet another animal for three years?!" I warned the children not to get too attached.
The next day I found myself at Petco, purchasing a shallow aquarium and tadpole food. The boys lined half the aquarium with rocks so that the Speckle and his colleague could crawl out of the water when their lungs demanded air rather than water.
Speckle grew knees. Knees! Out of nothing, Speckle suddenly found himself with bones and joints and gross motor skills.
The week his class studied frogs, Boo took the tadpoles to school for show and tell. Other teachers asked if we could bring more tadpoles from the ranch to share with their classes. I promised to try.
At home, the boys created stations for the tadpoles, just like at school. Rock station. Eating station. Water station.
In the meantime, Speckle grew front legs. Then he climbed out of the water and onto the rock station in the morning. As his tail began to disappear, I tried to prepare the boys for the inevitable.
"Right now, Speckle is using up his tail in order to grow into a frog. But when his tail is gone, he'll need to eat live animals like mosquitos and worms. We can't have live bugs flying around our house, so this weekend, we're going to have to take Speckle back to the ranch and release him in the lake. That way, Speckle can make babies, and we can catch them next summer and watch more tadpoles transform into frogs!" Max was forlorn, but he understood. We began to get ready to tell Speckle goodbye.
So I was unprepared for the commotion from the kids' room when they got home from school today.
"Mom, Speckle's dead!"
"What?"
"His eyes are blue, and he was floating upside down in the water."
Max came into the room, holding the limp frog in his palm.
Boo trudged along side his brother. "This is so sad."
I controlled myself. I didn't shriek about what horrible germs might even now be migrating from Speckle to my older son. Nor did I fling the lifeless amphibian down the nearest commode and flush him into oblivion.
This was an important milestone: the death of their first pet. Marking the passing of its life deserved respectful treatment.
"Boys, we need to go into the back yard to bury Speckle."
Max said solemnly, "I'll find a shovel."
Boo said, "We need to have a ceremony."
Max replied, "What's a ceremony?"
I chimed in. "We need to honor Speckle, and thank God for sharing him with us for a little while."
Boo continued, "And we need to say the good things we'll always remember about him."
(How does my three year old know such grown-up things? I swear to you that we do not take him to funerals for recreation.)
Max deposited Speckle on a soft cushion of toilet paper. Then I disinfected their hands. Several layers of skin later, the boys chose a flower bed and dug a shallow hole. I gently placed Speckle in the ground and covered him with soil.
"God, thank you for your amazing creature, Speckle. We're so glad we got to know him and care for him and watch him transform from a tadpole to a frog. Speckle was a good frog, and I hope he had a good life. We will miss him. Thank you for all your miraculous creations, even us. Amen.......Boys, is there anything you'd like to say now about Speckle?"
Boo smiled. "Nice ceremony, mommy."
They bolted back into the house to build robots or draw racecars or make an animal parade.
R.I.P., Speckle.
