at the edge

Willa had a tadpole. We got the whole kit n' caboodle for her birthday. Fiona arrived about a month ago, and she happily lived until Saturday morning.

Know what else happened over the weekend? Really great things: Jim came home from being work-gone for a while. We went to Festival downtown: all 3 days. We caught up with Keri for lunch one afternoon. We met our pals the Groens at a park on a fantastic evening.

I digress.

Also, Greta the dog found a rabbit den on the lawn. I didn't know until I saw Greta with a baby bunny in her mouth. She ate it. And then another before I could grab her. It was truly horrifying. Luckily the kids didn't see this. They did however see the remaining babies.
In the morning, I knew momma rabbit never returned to the den that night, which meant the babies were hungry. So, I scooped up the ones that were still alive, placed them in a fleece lined bucket and got them something to eat until we could bring them to the rescue lady.

I went to feed Henry's fish. One was dead.

I took a deep breath and counted to 10.

I dreaded telling Willa that Fiona died. She doted over the frog-to-be.

While Henry napped, I pulled Willa to my lap and told her, "I have some sad news to share..."

She was very sad, "she didn't even get to be a frog, mom!"

I started to cry. Friends, I couldn't stop. My daughter was crushed. My dog was a bunny eater, Henry refused to eat his lunch, Jim was gone... I cried and cried.

And then she said, "mom? Maybe we can order 2 more from California now?"

We buried Fiona and Mandarin the fish in a shared grave under the white peony yesterday. We'll be putting the Frog Habitat in storage for a while. At least until I shake that Elmyra feeling.*



* You know... Elmyra from Tiny Toons. Wikipedia says this about her: Elmyra is quite young and obsessed with animals and cute things (which is probably why she works as a nurse at Acme Looniversity), even chasing after animals whom she knows are her classmates at Acme Looniversity, obliviously causing great discomfort or serious injury to potential pets from her overenthusiastic affection and complete lack of even the most rudimentary knowledge of pet care.