Murderer of Tadpoles and Frogs

Over the Summer holidays I offered to tadpole sit for my friend N and her three kids.  "No problems," I said, "I can manage that, my fish and cats are living proof I am capable of sustaining pet life."

It started off well.  They became a feature and every child that passed through our house in the Christmas/New Year period was suitably impressed by them.  Then on the day of our last holiday visitors, I (luckily) checked on them before showing the two eager little boys.  They were dead.  Guts up to be precise.

Now to be honest the day I picked up the little blighters there compardre was guts up in the salad bowl they were calling home, so I am not ALL responsibility here, (Those tadpoles were sick right? It was my awesome tadpole sitting skills that kept them alive for almost three weeks...) but man I felt DEVASTATED.  I swear it was so ridiculously out of proportion to the size of the little buggers who went into a zip lock bag and into my freezer to be handed over on my friend N's return so they could be buried under a tree in her front yard where apparently all the dead pets in their family go.  I made sure I kept them because I had heard about the other murderer friend who had made the mistake of disposing of the fish that had not made it in their care during a previous holiday.

The absolute worst part of this story is that I could not tell my friend N.  She was having the holiday from Hell with her in laws and I was worried about contributing to her misery.  Each time she sent me a text about the latest hellish happening, I cringed and pushed those tadpoles and their evil little faces (I swear they died on purpose, they HATED me, you'd understand if you saw the looks they kept giving me) way out of my mind and sent back a supportive comment and a good dose of psychic sunshine.

I tried to replace them.  I found a creek on a friends property, but alas, no tadpoles.  One friend suggested I go with the tale that they hopped away as happy little frogs...

Anyway, when they returned my friend N and I took quite a while to catch up face to face due to our oldest kids starting different schools and all of the related hulabaloo associated with that.  Finally, we arranged a Friday night Max Brenner date and I offered to drive.  On my way  to her place I realised she still did not know about the demise of the taddies.  I freaked out.  As soon as she got in the car I blurted it out.  A bit of a shock but other than calling me a murderer (jokingly, I think), we got on with it.  It seems our friendship can endure the death of a few tadpoles.  Good to know.

Yesterday morning I found this poor little guy washed into our pool by the torrential and relentless Sydney rain, no doubt.  It looked like he'd made it to the steps but even though the pool is almost at capacity, he could not get out.  Drowned froggy.  Sad boys here.  We gave him a funeral and took a couple of photos for the Little Man to show his class.  (Yeah gross but in a house of boys it had to happen.)

The thing is, I remembered that the last frog I saw in the backyard was moments later annihilated by the electric eel...

So it seems I am a disaster area when it comes to amphibians and yes, my friend N took delight in ribbing me about it. 






Linking up with Jess at Diary of a SAHM for IBOT today.  Check it out!