About 3 months ago Mitch and I found a frog in the back garden and he has always been a bit of an 'animal whisperer' and holds bugs and critters that he finds in the garden without being frightened and he was so happy with his find and wanted to keep it as a pet and due to the fact that a frog would be a very easy pet to have and a very cheap pet to keep I said yes without hesitation.
Well Mitch was on cloud nine and you couldn't wipe the smile off his face and so happy was he in fact that he decided to take the frog to nanny's to show off his new baby! well as I'm sure you can imagine this was a disaster waiting to happen and the little frog escaped and was most probably eaten by nanny's dogs or cat but anyway Mitch was totally devastated and cried his little heart out.
Anyway Mitch's Aunty Nome has been fishing frogs out of her pool filter all week so when she told me this I asked her to get me some frogs for Mitch, so yesterday we presented Mitch with three new babies and he could not conceal his excitement.
The next afternoon Thomas had been locked out of Paige's room so he was crying very dramatically and I needed a diversion so what better thing to divert him than holding a frog! it was perfect and worked like a dream,. he stopped crying and was laughing watching the little critter hop around the kitchen floor and not only was he happy I was loving it, I love frogs and he looked so cute jumping around until he jumped under the dishwasher, yes you read right the dishwasher! frig what have I done was my first thought and my second thought was I hope Mitch doesn't walk in and catch me looking for his lost frog and I lay on the floor with a steak knife trying to reach the little critter Pete asked me if I planned to stab him with the knife, of course I wasn't going to stab him just slap his butt with it so he would jump out but I couldn't do that because he disappeared under the dishwasher maybe never to be seen again. I don't know how he could even fit under there because there were so many foreign objects it wasn't funny one of them being my tiny babushka doll that had been lost years ago!
Anyway I was breaking out in a cold sweat because I knew what was coming and I went through all the scenarios in my head and all the lies I could make up so I could avoid breaking Mitch's heart , I could tell him it escaped, well it did didn't it! I could just omit my involvement and all would be good wouldn't it? I could call nome and ask for another frog! just replace the slimy little beast and no one would be the wiser, well the trouble is Mitch would know, he knew every little dot on that frogs back so he would be too smart for that.
The horrible reality of it all was that I would have to come clean and tell my 6 year old the awful truth that his mother had lost his precious little frog and it wasn't coming back, so I waited about 2 hours til I summoned the courage and I asked him to come sit with me for a talk, he looked so beautiful his big brown eyes looking at me with innocence and love, I was about to break his heart. I explained to him that I had something that I was really scared to tell him and I was worried he would be cross with me, I was such a pathetic mess, I actually had butterflies in my stomach over a lost frog, but only because I knew how precious this amphibian was to my Mitchy. So I told him I had lost his frog and I was sooooo sorry and I asked for his forgiveness, he looked up at me with those big brown eyes holding back the tears and rubbed my arm and said that's "ok mum" and cuddled me, he didn't get cross he didn't cry but i know he wanted to, he held back all those emotions like a grown up, he was behaving like he was 40 not 6 and at that moment he taught me so much. He taught me how I should behave when my children come to me with a problem that they are too scared or ashamed to tell me, that I should act like I'm 38 not 6 and that I should show forgiveness and understanding with out ranting or raving and that nothing is that bad that we cant talk about it or fix it, that frog was Mitchy's whole world and he was so understanding and forgiving even though I had done a stupid thing.
Thankfully an hour or so later when I walked into the kitchen who should appear? yes you guessed it one little frog so I pounced and grabbed the slimy little critter who is now safely back in his bowl and I was so excited I started screaming "I've got the frog, I've got the frog" which made all the children run and cuddle me with the tightest longest cuddle coming from Mitch, he was so thankful that his little frog was home safely and thanked me for finding it when in reality it found me, thank goodness now we can all sleep well tonight.
Aaaahhh....that brought tears to my eyes! Sniff Sniff.
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