Frog-icide

Last week Muddy sent me a series of texts explaining that Oliver, the cat, had discovered Sprinkle and Sparkle, the two African Dwarf frogs that Addie received for her 5th birthday and who have been sitting since then on our mantle in their little ecosystem completely uninterrupted. (It is worth mentioning that the parent of the child who gave them to Addie never asked us if it was ok, thus we've been thrilled frog owners ever since.) Oliver apparently saw movement on the mantle and had to investigate, prompting him to jump to the radiator and then to the mantle for the first time since we've owned him. After catching Oliver up there four times and fearing he'd try to knock the aquarium off the mantle, Oliver spent the rest of the day up in Ben's bedroom with the door closed until I came home from work. (It's also worth mentioning that the one thing that I have the most irrational reaction to is the thought of an amphibian jumping out of water, whether a fish tank, a lake, etc. The very thought of it flopping around gasping for air makes my skin crawl and everyone knows that about me).)
So then I had to figure out where Sprinkle and Sparkle could go live, since clearly Oliver was becoming frog-obsessed. Aunt Wendy graciously offered to take them, and Muddy cleverly suggested I ask Addie's teacher if they wanted class pets. So I emailed her teacher who replied she would love them as class pets and we decided we'd take them in on Wednesday (this) morning, since I didn't hear back until Friday and Monday was the holiday from school and Tuesday I had clinic so I couldn't take them in.
All weekend long Sprinkle and Sparkle have been happily living their life in their aquarium on top of Ben's dresser with the door to Ben's room closed at all times to prevent Oliver from "playing."
This morning Addie woke me up to say that she was so excited because yesterday was her day to share and she told the class that Sprinkle and Sparkle would be coming to live in their classroom. All the kids screamed with excitement and "it was so loud we all had to cover our ears and it gave us headaches." She also told me they had decided that whoever was Student of The Week got to feed Sprinkle and Sparkle that week. She was really giddy with jubilation about it all.
So I get my shower and I tell the kids to get dressed, etc. I get out of the shower and hear this "whooomp" sound. I yelled, "what was that?" and they replied, "I don't know" which made me run out of the bathroom quickly because I had a feeling....
I turned the corner into Ben's room and there on the ground was Sprinkle and Sparkle's broken aquarium, with gravel and water all over the area rug and Oliver happily sniffing. I screamed and said "Oliver killed the frogs!" and started trying to figure out what to do. This prompted Addie and Ben to start to freak out about it all too. I yelled for them to get a bucket and they couldn't find anything so I ran down stairs sans towel, grabbed a bucket ran up stairs and promptly scooped one of the frogs off the rug into the bucket and ran to the sink to put water on him. I ran back to Ben's room frantically searching the floor for the other one, looking under the dresser, sifting through the gravel, trying to keep calm and keep the kids calm and then I look into the remaining portion of the aquarium which has a little gravel and about an inch of water left in it and see the other frog still in there. So I take that part, pour it into the bucket and try to put some gravel in, all the while trying to protect the sensitive ecosystem and not throw off the ph too much. Somehow along the way I cut my finger. I comment on that and Addie exclaims, "I'll get a Bandaid" and she hurries downstairs to save my finger. She very carefully put it on my finger and I survived. :)
Meanwhile the kids are crying, scared, excited, nervous, mad and trying to get Oliver out of the room. We ended up putting him in our bedroom with the door closed. So now the two frogs are on our bathroom counter swimming in a tupperware tub of fresh tap water (not ideal), with gravel that has been on a rug (not ideal), and I'm trying to put the bamboo stalk back in the bucket and the rock to make it as normal as possible.
This of course is now the time that I'm supposed to be getting ready to take the frogs to Addie's classroom forever and instead I'm wondering what time the pet store opens so I can buy a new aquarium and gravel for these two frogs that we never wanted or asked for. Lovely.
Fast forward a trip to the pet store where I buy a new aquarium and new gravel, come home, try to recreate to the best of my ability the same looking environment and carefully transfer as much of the old water and old gravel as possible and then I move Sprinkle and Sparkle over. They are doing fine, I think.
I then had the not-so-easy task of driving them in their new tank to school with the tank on my lap. Well wouldn't you know that city streets are bumpy and the bamboo stalk came out of the gravel and is floating on the top of the aquarium (which has many lovely air holes) and each little bump in the road causes the bamboo slosh against the side of the aquarium and water is covering my lap. Longest.ride.to.school.ever.
I get there and miraculously Sprinkle and Sparkle are still swimming in the aquarium. Neither has died...yet although they may have suffered traumatic brain injuries based on the events of the morning. The kids in Addie's classroom are beaming with excitement and energy and Sprinkle and Sparkle have new homes.
I did tell Addie's teacher that in the event that the trauma catches up with Sprinkle and Sparkle and they don't last long, we will replace them with other frogs.
So for now, I'm signing off as...
The Frog Saver
PS It's worth mentioning that Muddy said it's good it happened on my watch because if she had been there when it happened, she would have closed Ben's bedroom door and left it there for me to deal with when I got home, because apparently she has an even larger irrational fear of amphibian life outside of their natural environments than I do. Boy am I glad it happened with me home!!