April 28 (day 44): Benjamin has held a tadpole/froglet a time or two before but we'd never taken pictures because I've been a little afraid that he'll squish/drop/eat it while I'm distracted. This particular day I pulled out the camera and then he decided that he didn't want to hold the frog at all. In fact he hardly wanted to look at it (there were cars driving by) so Miriam held his head in place for him. He wasn't entirely impressed.
Here he is in the middle of waving "Bye!" to the frog. That's a pretty clear signal that he's finished with any given activity.
And then I forgot that we had tadpoles for a few days because...stomach flu.
May 4 (day 50): I finally made it out of the house to check on them yesterday and they were still alive. I fished out two that had developed their forelimbs so we could release them but we still have at least five more to go! Benjamin wanted to hold one so I helped him keep his fingers from curling up around it, poor thing. He probably would have stuffed it right into his pocket if I had let him.
I cooked up some lettuce for the remaining tadpoles and urged them to get a move on things when I dropped the meal into their tank. They're a full two weeks behind the first of their siblings to complete metamorphosis. We've been raising tadpoles forever! Or at least for fifty whole days, which is plenty long.
I'm now reminded why we don't have any pets. I have children and that's quite enough responsibility for me.
If we ever do get an official pet it will have to be a sweet, cuddly pet—one that will cry for its supper (so I don't forget to give it to them) and then crawl on my lap for a bedtime snuggle (so I don't forget to keep loving them). That's probably the only reason my children are still alive when I can't even manage to keep a houseplant perky.
Raising frogs is for the birds (probably more literally than I know (I'm still pretending that my frogs are doing just dandy on their own out in the wilds of the Carolinas))!
(I might be a tad grumpy due to cleaning up vomit all week; perhaps the tadpoles will seem intriguing once again, after I recover from this vile illness (that I never got, thank goodness, but having the children be sick with it was bad enough)).
Here he is in the middle of waving "Bye!" to the frog. That's a pretty clear signal that he's finished with any given activity.
And then I forgot that we had tadpoles for a few days because...stomach flu.
May 4 (day 50): I finally made it out of the house to check on them yesterday and they were still alive. I fished out two that had developed their forelimbs so we could release them but we still have at least five more to go! Benjamin wanted to hold one so I helped him keep his fingers from curling up around it, poor thing. He probably would have stuffed it right into his pocket if I had let him.
I'm now reminded why we don't have any pets. I have children and that's quite enough responsibility for me.
If we ever do get an official pet it will have to be a sweet, cuddly pet—one that will cry for its supper (so I don't forget to give it to them) and then crawl on my lap for a bedtime snuggle (so I don't forget to keep loving them). That's probably the only reason my children are still alive when I can't even manage to keep a houseplant perky.
Raising frogs is for the birds (probably more literally than I know (I'm still pretending that my frogs are doing just dandy on their own out in the wilds of the Carolinas))!
(I might be a tad grumpy due to cleaning up vomit all week; perhaps the tadpoles will seem intriguing once again, after I recover from this vile illness (that I never got, thank goodness, but having the children be sick with it was bad enough)).
Benjamin is perhaps more of an engineer than a biologist? The frogs have been a really good lesson to me on how varied development is. All moms need to know that. Wish I had known it a tad sooner.
ReplyDelete@Myrna, did you mean tad(pole) sooner? Ha ha
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed your tadpole series. Thanks for your willingness to share your stories with us. :)
ReplyDelete