Every spring - in part because we have a pool in the backyard - we have no less than 37 dozen frogs in our backyard.
This doesn't bother me in the least. I like to listen to frogs chirping at night as I lay in bed with the patio doors open. And it certainly doesn't bother Daughter 2 who loves the frogs. We recently uncovered our pool, and that was the signal to Daughter 2 that the frogs will be returning. Daily, she'll walk through the much-too-high backyard grass and skim the green-ish looking pool looking for the first frog of the season.
I always feel for the first frog of the season. Daughter 2 will bring this frog into the house and play with it and bathe it (sometimes she'll bathe with it) and baby it and dress it up and kiss it and completely wear it out. If The Dad or I get a chance, we'll snag up the frog and set it free in the backyard swearing we have no idea what happened to it. If we don't get the chance, we'll find the poor shriveled up thing a few weeks later, in Daughter 2's room, and she'll swear she has no idea what happened to it.
For weeks now, she's been in search of that elusive first frog. We've heard them singing their night songs for some time now, but Daughter 2 hasn't been able to get her warty little hands on their slimy little bodies.
But all of that changed tonight. I was cooking dinner - sweating my tiny hiney off because I'm way too cheap to actually turn on the air just yet - when I heard Daughter 2 in the backyard give a happy little shriek!
"Momma! I found two! I found two frogs!!" And in no time at all, she had the frogs in my face, right beside me as I stood in front of the stove.
"Aren't they cool, Momma? And they're Siamese twins!"
"Ummm... excuse me? Siamese twins? What do you think a Siamese twin is?" I questioned, growing slightly anxious about what I was really looking at.
"Siamese twins are two twins that are joined together in one body. See?" And she held the joined frogs right in front of my bugged out eyes. "This one is laying on top of the other one. They both have their whole bodies, but this ones tummy is joined to this ones back. I tried to pull them apart," and she demonstrated her efforts, causing the frogs to chirp as loud as if they were on the floor section of a Def Leppard concert. "See? They won't come apart."
Surely not, right? I mean, this is surely not what I was thinking it was. Quickly, I went to Google as Daughter 2 built them a habitat... complete with a cotton ball bed! As if they needed that! Google confirmed my slightly warped suspicion: The frogs were full-blown amplexus... for those of you who are not familiar with zoological terms, amplexus mean the frogs were bumpin' uglies. Doing the baby dance. The Horizontal Hop... these frogs were having sex.
Not only were they having sex, they were having sex in Daughter 2's hands. In my kitchen. While being very loud! If they were my college roommates, I'd be heading out the door right about now!
I begged her to release them back to the wild. She would hear nothing of it. Her plan was to take them to show and tell. And according to google, they could still be doing it on show and tell day and the day after and the day after! A very small, evil part of my brain thought that'd be a great day for my friend, FloJo - Daughter 2's first grade teacher. The Dad thought that maybe in his next life he'd want to be the boy frog (the one on top, of course!) if he got to participate in amplexus for days on end! I love that The Dad dreams big.
I thought that surely, all the handling and gawking and pulling would break this bond, but if their chirping is any indication, it only made the experience more intense. I was certain that when Daughter 2 began reading Frog and Toad Together to them as they were sitting in her lap, they'd give up the gusto. And I just knew that when she got out her guitar and serenaded them with her seven-year-old version of "Poker Face", they'd call it quits and promise each other they'd try again when the lights were out and the kids were asleep.
I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Their chirping got louder and their breathing more labored. Somehow, in some wild way, I was trapped in a weird little frog porn!
"Get. Them. Out. Of. Here." I hissed at The Dad while Daughter 2 ran to the bathroom.
"Why don't we wait until Daughter 2 goes to sleep and then we'll dump them?" he suggested.
"Why don't you just take them out right now?" I countered.
"Why don't you?" The Dad - always a wordy debater - countered back.
"Because I do NOT want to touch frogs who are engaged in the act of love." I calmly explained. "And if you want me to touch you while engaged in the act of love, you will put these frogs back in the pool, so they'll be sufficiently lubed up and they can finish the job they started!"
He just stared at me. I knew I lost him when I talked about touching him. Eventually, he snapped back to reality and grabbed the frogs - still chirping and still panting - and headed to the back yard.
But he was not quick enough. Daughter 2 bounded back into the kitchen and noticed that the frogs were not in the cotton-ball-bottomed habitat she had created for them. She hollered for The Dad to stop and let her have her frogs back.
"Honey," I quickly explained, "Siamese frogs must live in water. I read it on Google. If they don't live in water, they die."
"Google says so, Momma?"
"Google says so."
"Can I kiss them goodbye?"
"Ummmm...." I looked at The Dad. Really? Would we let our child kiss these frogs who were locked in a passionate embrace? "I... guess?"
And she gently kissed John and Crystal each on the lips then she bid them goodbye and wished them good luck.
John? Crystal? Obviously, these were aliases for a prostitute frog and her client.
Shortly after John and Crystal were placed in the pool to finish up their croaking, Daughter 2 came into the kitchen looking sad.
"Do you think John and Crystal miss me?"
"Oh, absolutely, Daughter 2!"
"Do you think they'll remember me?" she sighed.
"Honey, my guess is they'll not only remember you, but name their first 15 tadpoles after you!"
"Tadpoles?!!?!?" She screamed. "Geez, Momma. John and Crystal are TWINS. BROTHER AND SISTER! They can't have babies together. OMG, Momma. You're sick."
When she comes home from high school after a very telling day in Biology, I'll remind her who's the sick one...
