I was lying on a beach enjoying the warm sunshine and the feeling of sand between my toes. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore. The sun was shining brightly and there was a light breeze blowing across my body. I heard a loud crash and then a huge splash of water and was jolted out of dreamland and into reality-land. Talk about a rude awakening! I realized that the crash and splash were “real” and that they came from downstairs. I could also hear Caleb squealing and laughing with delight.
What was that? It sounded like an awful lot of water or some sort of liquid … what has Caleb gotten into this time? Caleb is a pro at destruction and loves to see what happens when he throws things up in the air and lets them fall (or crash) to the ground. My mind was racing with all the possible things that could have created these sounds as I ran down the stairs to find Caleb jumping up and down with excitement. He looked at me and stopped and then looked over at the kitchen sink. I walked over to the sink to find our pet frog, Froggy, had been “set free”.
Froggy has been in our family since last February. He is one of those itty bitty frogs you may have seen at the Hallmark store that come in a little glass cube filled with water and a little bit of aquarium rock in the bottom. This is not the first time Caleb has tried to help Froggy escape … there have been multiple other attempts to help Froggy gain his freedom, but none that had ended as badly as this time. This plan of escape involved Caleb tipping Froggy’s glass cube over into the kitchen sink and unfortunately when all the water went down the drain so did Froggy. I looked down and could see Froggy frantically jumping around in the garbage disposal.
“Caleb!” I yelled. “What did you do that for? Why did you knock over the frog?” Obviously Caleb didn’t answer but neither do my three other children half the time (especially if they are afraid the answer will just get them into more trouble). Caleb was still smiling and seemed to find the whole ordeal quite entertaining. I reached down and saved Froggy from the garbage disposal and put him back into his cage. I added clean water and tried to get most of the aquarium rock out of the garbage disposal so that it wouldn’t ruin it next time I turned it on.
Emma came downstairs later and said, “Oh, you cleaned Froggy’s cage!” She had been asking me to clean it for several weeks and seemed happy that I finally got around to doing it. I laughed and said, “Yes, I did clean his cage, but only because Caleb about killed the poor little Froggy when he dumped him into the garbage disposal!” Emma was relieved that Froggy was OK and she made sure to give him a few extra pieces of frog food to help Froggy deal with the stress and trauma caused by all the excitement of the morning.
Why did Caleb tip over the cage and set Froggy free?
Did he hear Emma and I talking earlier in the week about Froggy’s cage needing to be clean and think he could help?
Did he just want to see what would happen if he tipped over the cube filled with water?
Was he trying to get Froggy out to play?
I am not sure why he did it but I was relieved to find out that the majority of the water went into the sink and not on the floor. I was also thankful that it was water and not something sticky like Sprite that had been spilled.
Another plus : Caleb did not turn the garbage disposal ON! (Wow – that would have been messy!)
Caleb's Voice 