Silver Lining

Meet Silvery.

He's a common gray tree frog (we presume), and he appeared on our fence recently. Abby spotted him first, because frogs are always on her radar, and within moments of capturing him, she had adopted him as her very own.

This is problematic, because frogs aren't the sort to stay in one place for long.

He hopped out of her hand. She scooped him back up. He hopped away again. She scooped him back up.

Hop. Scoop. Hop. Scoop.

Until finally, poor Silvery was too tired to do much else than simply rest in the arms of a six year old who loved him "more than anything else in the whole wide world."

When it was time to go inside, we convinced her to let him go, but not without some coaxing.

I thought it was over then.

I was wrong.

The next day I found her crying by the back door.

"I miss Silvery!" she moaned. Deep, heavy sobs shook her body. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She would not be comforted.

At that moment, I began to wonder if anyone has ever loved anything as much as this girl loved her long-lost frog.

I could do nothing to ease the pain left behind by the release of Silvery into the wild. As a mom, there is little that irks me more than not being able to comfort my kids when they're hurting. Even if it's just over a frog.

Two days and three nights passed by. This morning, it was too rainy to go outside again. Abby wanted to continue her work on the house she had been constructing for her frog in the back yard, in an attempt to lure him back.

Turns out, we didn't need to go far to find him.

"Mommy!" she screamed. The family came running. "It's Silvery!"

And there, clinging to those front windows as frogs have been known to do, was a little gray frog.

So my daughter did what any sane person would do.

She brought him inside. She rocked him a little, because babies and frogs like to be rocked, apparently.

She let her brothers introduce their stuffed animals to him.

She lost him a few times. Hop. Scoop. Hop. Scoop.

And then, she found a little box he could rest in if he was so inclined, and she put him back outside, right where she found him.

But not without saying a proper goodbye first.

Now that she knows he might come back when it rains, she's not quite so sad in Silvery's absence.

"He's just outside doing frog things, and catching bugs," she assured me. "He'll come back if he gets cold."