Frogs in the Sink

Now that I have your attention I want to explain the meaning behind the name of my blog.

I have three kids. As any mother (or anyone who has spent 5 minutes with a kid) knows, our little angels can make us do and say things we never thought we would. My husband often wonders how I can walk over the same pair of shoes in the middle of the living room 16 times without stopping to pick them up–the short answer–I have become used to them being there. Clutter has become a permanent fixture in my life…I can either learn to walk over the little stuff and focus on the important stuff, like keeping the kids alive, or turn my back for 10 seconds to put them away and risk the destruction of another part of the house. I will get to the shoes eventually.

Back to the frogs in the sink. Being a mother and getting used to the clutter there are things that we just save for later and there are others kinds of clutter that we know just are not going anywhere so we learn to live with it. Mud on the floor and worms in sandwich baggies are those types of clutter that I choose to deal with, pretty much, right away. Shoes in the living room can wait!

The other night, I was going about my business in the bathroom, getting ready for bed. The last thing I do is brush my teeth. On this particular night, I was especially tired. My kids had made their usual mess of toothpaste on the counter and water on the floor. I cleaned the obvious messes up and proceeded to turn on the sink. I one, routine motion I had managed to turn on the water and move a miniature dollhouse pool filled with water. Sitting in the water was a toy frog. One of those that comes out of the bubblegum machine and you make jump with your finger. The miniature pool was covering the drain and without even noticing I had moved it over so the water could drain. I did this out of habit. Once the water was on, I reached for my toothbrush. I got my toothbrush and realized what I had just done. I had just moved a pool with a frog out of my way so I could brush my teeth!!!

One of my lovely children had carefully placed the frog in the middle of the pool and filled the pool with water as if this frog’s life depended on it. I was stunned that I had just done this without even thinking twice. What happened next proved that I am, in fact, a mother in every sense of the word….I picked up that pool with the frog out of my sink and carefully moved it to the counter. I didn’t spill a drop of water (go ahead and insert an imaginary pat on the back for my mad skills) and treated this frog that had invaded my sink as if it were our pet. Although it is clutter it meant something to whichever one of my kids that put it there so that means I care for it. My kids are only kids once. We only have one life. I will take every part of that–frogs in the sink and all.

Update on the frog: It has been two days and the frog is still doing great and is floating happily in his miniature pool beside my bathroom sink 🙂

Here is our happy frog. (photo taken by me, Valerie Collins)