Our Princess, Her Frog and the Drama that Ensued

     I think the major drug companies that keep peddling all of their miracle cures should start to work on some form of parenting prozac...


     maybe it would be more like xanax...you know, kind of a situational thing...prozac takes too long to get into the system. I need something in the moment, right away, after I feel like I've been riding an emotional roller coaster with my children for several hours, to calm my poor nervous system...I'm not sure I can take one more bruised knee, emergency neosporin application on a large blister, or an almost dead frog that prompted tears from both of the little people in our house and severe shock to the mother of the little people earlier today.


     It has been an eventful day and it is only 2:30, though the major issues that I will relate have all taken place in the last 2 hours and before I take a nap to sleep it off (my alternative to the parenting xanax I don't have) I will relate the story to you.


     It is a beautiful day here in Buffalo-- a very welcomed blessing after the long winter we have had. The girls and I were outside for most of the late morning and early afternoon. I was cutting the grass (yes ladies, sometimes I actually cut the grass! I figure if I'm outside with the girls anyway I might as well get it done. If left to Scott to do later he'd need me to watch the girls so that he could do it, so I'd rather do it earlier in the day so that he can hang with the girls later and I can do something more exciting...like run off the big pile of homemade mac & cheese that I couldn't control myself around at lunch time today!).


     The girls were swinging and running and sliding down their slide, quite happy for the most part. Ava had stopped crying about her blister (for which I had changed the band-aids 3 separate times already...one in response to a curdling scream that nearly took the breath out of me while I was trying to fix the girls lunch. She had new band-aids on, socks I demanded she not take off and momentarily seemed to have forgotten about the threatening wound). We eventually brought Elmo outside to also swing and somehow that seems to be where all of the drama started...


     I had cut the grass in the backyard before lunch and was going to venture out front to finish the job afterwards. Ava was happily swinging, I helped Ella put a corduroy polka dotted vest on Elmo because she insisted he would be cold otherwise and off she went to swing him.

     I managed to cut two long strips of grass on the side of the house when I saw Elmo's swing and Ava's swing simultaneously come back and mange to knock Ella to the ground. I ran to her, picked her up, calmed her down, wiped her tears and convinced her everything was o.k. I went back to the lawn mower...several more strips into lawn cutting I saw something move in front of me and let out a loud shriek as a rather large frog hopped in front of the mower startling the momma who doesn't like bugs or frogs or other outdoor thingy's with legs to be near me.


     The girls heard my scream and came running. Ella seemed a bit startled by the sight of the hopping reptile but Ava, who has been attempting to prove her bravery about things like worms and frogs tried to catch him. She finally did. She was petting him and holding him and it was really pretty cute. I was so gosh darned proud of her because I don't think I've ever so much as come close to even touching a frog with one finger in my life. I ran inside to grab the camera and managed to snap this shot of her trying to pick him up again.


(alright, I know the frog doesn't look very big here, but I swear he was in like the 75th percentile as far as local yard frogs go.)

     Next thing you know little miss Ella looks down, takes her chunky brown shoe and faster than I could stop her picks up her foot and stomps on the poor little guy right in front of Ava!!!


     My mouth dropped in shocked silence and my eyes must have been as wide as anything as I stood gapping and then screamed at Ella that that was "Bad. Bad. Bad!!!"


     Ava, of course, broke into a fit of weeping tears right away. I think I've mentioned she is the most sensitive child on the face of the planet.


     Through tears and sobs she starts screaming, "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. He was a nice little frog and....sniffle, sniffle, sob, sob... and I was having fun with him and Ella just STOMPED him!!!"


     She was so angry and so sad-- the poor thing.


    Ava is just standing next to the poor frog and wants me to go pick her up, but I'm standing like 8 feet away and won't go any closer because I'm afraid there are frog guts all over the grass and I don't want to see the poor smooshed frog.


     I beckon her to come to me and she finally does. All the while, Ella sneaks behind me and goes back to pushing Elmo.


    "Look mommy. I pushing Elmo," she says with a grin, hoping I will be impressed enough to forget what she has just done to the frog.


     I'm pretty upset and sad for Ava and yell at her and tell her to go inside and up to her room.


     Now she starts sobbing and Ava is still sobbing and I run in the house and open the basement door and beckon my poor husband from his work because I don't think I can handle the situation alone anymore.


     I quickly fill him in and tell him to go outside and inspect the scene of the accident. He willingly obliges with Ava trailing behind him.


     Well, as it turns out, this little frog must have some serious connections up above or the guardian angel that trails Ella around to keep her out of trouble must have interceded because Scott went out with Ava and that poor little guy was still in the grass and able to hop.


    ....phew....


     I went inside and upstairs to find that Ella had crawled into her crib in her dark bedroom (the blinds were all down and the lights off). She's just standing in her crib crying that she is tired. "Mommy, I tired. I tired. I tired." over and over again. 


    You think you're tired? is what I wanted to say. 


    Instead,  I washed her hands  and we had a nice little talk about how you don't stomp on little animals. That it, plain and simple, is not very nice.


   " You wouldn't like it very much if someone just stomped on your stuffed ladybug there, would you?" I asked, hoping to make a connection. 


    "You mean like this?" She says to me as she proceeds to step on it. 


     Oh boy.


     "Yes, Ella, like that."


      "No mommy." 


      I'm not sure I really believe her. 


       I then made her apologize to her sister and told her no more stomping on small animals.


   Ava needed me to console her a bit more, needed to know that I had spoken to Ella about the whole thing and then needed me to tickle her arms and face to help her get to sleep.


    I am finally in bed, staring at a mountain of clothes at the foot of my bed, and ready to fall asleep as I come to terms with the fact that perhaps the clothes will get picked up someday when the girls are in school and I'm not dealing with almost fatal frog situations.


   The lawnmower is just sitting on the side of our house in a very obviously uncut patch of grass. Hopefully Mr. Froggy has hopped to safety.


    Off to sleep off the emotional turmoil...hoping the second half of our day is less eventful than the first.