Frog

I told Allie to go to the bathroom before she got dressed this morning-- the usual routine. But she walked out before she even had sat down on the pot.

"Mom, there's a frog in the toilet," like it was no big deal. So I followed her into the bathroom, barely peeking around the rim of the bowl. Yep, it was there. I could tell it was bigger than the baby-size frogs we usually see around our house, so I slowly closed the lid. Allie had to use the toilet in our bathroom.

I didn't have time to deal with it at that moment, since I had to get Allie to school, so I stuffed towels and blankets in the cracks under the doors of their jack-n-jill bathroom to at least keep the frog in there if he (or, er, she) escaped the toilet bowl.

The girls had a ball telling the school staff there was a frog in the toilet, especially since I had yet to get it out.

After coming home, having spent the entire ride home pondering how to capture this innocent intruder, I decided on a strainer and a book. I grabbed them and went to the toilet, slowly opening the lid. I couldn't immediately see him, but Sami found him tucked away, hidden up near the toilet seat. Yeah, a big sucker-- maybe four inches in body length (without his legs stretched out) and three inches fat. I wish I had taken a picture at this point, but that didn't cross my mind.

I slowly lowered the strainer into the water, edging toward his feet, then flushing the toilet to "wash" him into the strainer. No dice. He just climbed around to the other side of the bowl. I tried to inch the strainer toward him again, using the book to keep him from jumping. But he found an opening. He leaped out from the bowl onto the floor by my feet. I screamed. Sami freaked out, leaping over to the bed. The frog tried to get under the door crack to Drew's room, pushing his way through a slight opening in the towel I had put there. I yelled, "Oh, no you don't!" He stopped, turned around, and looked at me. Huh, he obeyed. I had to chuckle.

Then he jumped on the wall, leaping his way toward a "safe" area behind the toilet. He seemed pretty content there, so that's when I took a picture.

Eventually, he moved back to the side wall, and I was able to get him to jump into the strainer, covering the top with the book. I had Sami take another picture, but the flash reflected off the metal on the strainer, so that one didn't really turn out.

We decided it would be best to put him our back by the lake. I leaned over the fence, taking the book away. He didn't move. I tried to dump him out, and he clinged to the strainer. It took several times of trying to forcefully dump him out, for him to finally decide to let go.

I told Sami to run in the house before he followed us.

I kind of think he liked us.

Epilogue...

I went to pick Allie up from school. As we drove off, I said, "Well, Allie, we caught the frog. We threw him outside, so you can use your toilet now." She smiled. Then a few seconds of silence.

"Was there frog poop in it?" I love the way her mind works.