Toad Hunting

The other day it rained here and my children had a bunch of fun finding baby toads. I'm guessing their legs are extra tender when compared to frog legs. Anyway, they caught 6 each and they were only like an inch long. They enjoyed torturing them or as they called it "playing with them". The Kirstenator used the top from a milk jug as a boat for them. The maximum capacity for that boat was 3 toad babies, if she added a fourth the boat would start to sink. Of course, we got the million dollar question "Can we keep them?" Exactly what am I supposed to feed 12 toad babies? Besides the fact that I don't want those in my house. I just know atleast one would get out and I would be the one to step on it or to smell its rotting carcass behind something immovable. Anyhow, Darktimber(my husband) saved the day. He decided that baby toads eat baby insects and since we didn't have any handy we should set them free. I let them torture them for awhile longer, because how many baby toads can say they've been on a boat ride. And then I made them set them free. It was a sad moment for the Kirstenator, but she rebounded and is now trying to make a pond in our back yard so that they can come back here to live. I've included some pics. The last one is when I told her she needed to let the toads go.

Chapter 4

After reading chapter 3 and 4, I found myself not wanting my daughter to ever get wounded. When she is a woman I don’t want her to ever feel some of the hurts I have felt. I don’t want her to be a wounded women. I was on a mission to be the perfect Mom and to tell my husband how to be the perfect Dad. Then I realized how impossible that idea was. If I can teach her what I’m learning, then she can with God’s help overcome these hurts before they become wounds. If I show her as she is growing up how to clean and bandage her small wounds. When the big hurts come her way she will be able to perform first aid on her wounds so that they won’t become infected. If I can teach her this, hopefully, she can avoid the trap so many of us women have fallen into. Instead of being busy cleaning her wounds she can be busy making a difference in the world.

Chapter 3

I have a 5-year-old daughter and after reading this chapter, I have begun to see my daughter asking “Am I lovely?”. It’s not that she is doing anything different than before I have just become more aware of it. For example, when she dresses up in her princess attire the first thing she does is prance around in front of her dad. She just looks at him and continues doing it until he says something. Sometimes my husband is in the middle of something and doesn’t see her right away, and the longer she waits the more the look on her face changes. At first I see anticipation, then just a smile, then she’ll call his name, and if he still has not said anything she gets a look of fear and worry. And once he says something she has a perma-grin on her face as she dances away excitedly, and the better the compliment the bigger the smile and better the dancing. Keep in mind that if you are trying to fix the air conditioner when it is above 90 degrees in the house, as a man, the last thing on your mind is your daughter fishing for compliments. Yes, in a perfect world he and I would notice every attempt and always stop and say the right thing. However, we aren’t perfect people.

I think when we were little girls we all did stuff like this. Only for me it was “Am I lovely when I hit the softball? Or ride my bike?” Between being that little girl and growing up, I became wounded. Then I became some weird mesh of the dominating, desolate, and indulging women and behind almost all my fears and hurts, I usually find some fear of abandonment.