Seven years ago, when my 3 oldest were little, and I was pregnant with my 4th, Kenneth and Camille won 2 African dwarf frogs at a carnival booth. This is what those look like:
They're teeny-tiny--they can fit on an adult finger (not that I ever tried that--God did not intend for slimy, squirmy animals to be handled by human hands)--and completely aquatic. The stuff I found online about these frogs said that their average lifespan is 2-3 years. Perfect, I thought. I can totally handle 2 years of these little things....
The kids named their frogs Dash and Violet, and swore their undying love and endless devotion to their care.... "undying" and "endless" meaning about 2 weeks, roughly translated to Adult English. I'm sure that at this point, a lot of mothers would have decided the frogs just weren't worth the effort, and Dash and Violet would've reached the big pond in the sky, by way of the toilet. But not me! I'm motivated almost entirely by avoidance of guilt--and flushing the frogs just seemed too, too cruel. So the frogs stayed. They were kept in a little tank with no filter, so their water needed to be changed weekly. If you've ever been to a swamp--where decay and perpetual wet create a most odoriferous environment--you may be able to appreciate to a very minor degree how very STANKY these frogs' water was. It was so horrific, in fact, that I was mostly incapable of avoiding violent, bone-shaking, bladder-busting vomiting when I changed their water during the first 5 nausea-filled months of each subsequent pregnancy (the kids took over the task--mostly--during this last pregnancy, thank goodness. I asked Devin to do it, and he delegated the task to them. I think Devin changed it MAYBE once in the past 7 years, always refusing the opportunity and stating that if he were in charge of the frogs, he'd choose flushing them over cleaning their stupid tank. Mmm-hmmm.... Classic male chore avoidance, is what that is). The stench of their used water had me contemplating finding them a new home (or, "finding them a new home," if you catch my meaning) every time I changed it. But, I was stubbornly committed to their well-being, and soldiered through. I also fed them and found people to care for them when we went on vacation.
I was frequently annoyed by those frogs' very existence, but I daresay I was also pretty devoted to them and intrigued by their aquatic frogginess. The kids and I enjoyed watching them do their thing, which was mostly darting around the tank and hiding under the rocks. Oh, and shedding their skins. The fact that they'd lived about 4 or 5 years longer than I'd expected was frustrating at times--because I sometimes felt ready for them to, well, croak, but then, I also felt like I was a pretty amazing caretaker if I could take a 2- to 3-year lifespan and stretch it out to SEVEN!
....But, well, OK, when they reached the 5-year mark, I went back online for some research because I was curious to know if they were the longest-living African Dwarf Frogs ever to have lived in captivity. Turns out their lifespan is more like 5-7 years. I see.... Makes sense, because how great of a caretaker was I, really, when I occasionally forgot to feed them for a day (or 2)? And also sometimes went 2 1/2 weeks without changing their nasty water (that's only happened during pregnancy, or with a new baby at home). When you can't even see the frogs for all the murkiness of their water, that's probably not super-healthy living conditions. Even if Devin liked to point out that the African ponds their ancestors lived in were most likely not clear, pristine waters.... But, still--they'd made it to the very upper limit of even the 5-7 year lifespan. And that's not nothing, let me tell you. I was excited to see how much longer they could defy the odds. They'd never had any of the weird sicknesses I'd read about online, and Dash had even lost a hand, Aron Ralston-style, when it apparently got pinned under one of the rocks--but survived to tell the tale, so to speak.
Last night, it was Quentin's turn to change their water. He successfully fished out all the rocks and washed them off, and caught the frogs in the little fish net. He plopped them into an Olive Garden kid's cup and asked for my help in dumping out the nasty tank water without letting the little rocks tumble out and down the kitchen sink drain (he'd learned from experience that when that happens, the little rocks get wedged under the garbage disposal blades, and Dad gets reeeeeally annoyed and lecture-y). In retrospect, I maybe should have stepped in at that point and transferred them to their usual mug--the one we always stick them in when we're changing their water. It's a big, wide-mouth soup mug, and it's universally recognized by all McKrolas as the frogs' tank-cleaning mug. But, I figured it wasn't that important, since we'd just clean out the tank right then and they'd be back in their home in a jiffy..... And that's where things started to go horribly, tragically awry. I've replayed the subsequent events over and over in my mind, and this is how it went down: Baby Colin woke up at that point, starving to DEATH, so I told Quentin to hang tight for a minute while I fed Colin. We could finish afterwards. But then, dinner needed to be made for the rest of us, so we put off the cleaning again. Dash and Violet were contentedly pooping and shedding skin in their Olive Garden cup, and several of the kids watched them for a little while--even asking, "Mom, why are they in THIS cup instead of the other one?" After dinner, I was downright done with kids being awake, so I sent them all to get ready for bed. Once they were in pj's, Devin called them back upstairs to FINISH CLEANING THIS KITCHEN! I was somewhere else, doing important things, I'm sure, and the frogs weren't at the forefront of my brain....
But THEN, when kids were all in bed and I had a free minute, I remembered the unfinished tank clean-up and headed to the kitchen. When I got there, everything had been cleaned up and the dishwasher was running--and the frogs' cup was nowhere to be seen. Oh, nooooo.... I went and asked Devin if he'd seen the Olive Garden cup that had been by the kitchen sink, because the frogs had been in there, and it was now gone. He gave me a look, and said, "No.... Do you think one of the kids dumped it by accident when they were loading the dishwasher?" Yeah, the thought had occurred to me.... I begged him to please go look in the sink for me, since finding and disposing of carcasses is totally the man's job. The dang kids had left the bigger pots and pans in the sink, soaking, instead of actually washing them like they're supposed to. Violet was floating at the top of one of the pots, and for a second, I felt relieved--she was in the water! They're aquatic frogs! Maybe she's OK! ....Nope, not OK. Big and bloated. And very much dead. The pot had been filled with HOT water, so she'd basically cooked in there. Oh, the horror! Devin set her aside and got the rest of the pans out of the sink, inspecting each one for Dash's carcass. He found it--down the drain, resting on the garbage-disposal blade. I couldn't take it. I started weeping. Over a FROG. A stupid, stinky frog that had lived 7 freaking years when I thought it'd live 2, tops.
I cried myself to sleep last night. Is that the most pathetic thing you've ever heard? I never thought I had that kind of love in my heart for those dang frogs. I do feel a big sense of loss, because I took care of those things! For 7 years! They were part of the family!
But, I think what hit me hardest in my despair is that it's not just the little frogs in our care who've died recently--remember our 9 little chickens who got devoured by some horrible beast that got into their coop? Because we'd never gotten around to fully securing all the openings with chicken wire? We were stewards over those chickens, and the 2 little frogs, and we FAILED them all. We are the worst stewards ever. The frogs dying, in my mind, is so heart-rending not only because they'd become such a normal part of our lives and family, but because their demise didn't have to be tragic and yucky. Their death could have been avoided if whoever carelessly dumped out that cup (without even noticing 2 frogs plunking out into the water) had slowed down. Paid more attention to what he/she was doing (no one has admitted responsibility, by the way. None of the kids did it, though they were all very quick to point the finger of blame at each other. So.... I'm supposed to believe... what, exactly? That the frogs jumped out of the cup, stuck it in the dishwasher to tidy up after themselves, and then plunged to their deaths in the sink? They were done living and made a suicide pact?).
That right there is the part that makes me the saddest. That, in spite of our recent, diligent efforts to motivate them for good, these kids are still stuck in this irritating pattern of irresponsibility and carelessness. I suppose it'll just take some more time to usher them from their (innate? learned?) delinquency to our ultimate goal of Responsible Contributors to Society. I'm sure we'll get there eventually--I already have noticed improvement in certain areas. I just hope there's no more loss of life or limb on our way to that destination....
