A Little Preparation
I need to sign Mila up for the Boy Scouts because that kid is ALWAYS prepared.
The scene: On a warm, sunny Saturday, I found us without a single plan for the first time in ... goodness, I don't know. We always have places we have to be or things we have to do on Saturdays. A weekend day without chaos is unheard of around these parts, and was even during the height of the pandemic. Thus, I thought it would be good to make good on a promise. Back about a month ago when we were at Ohiopyle, I said we would return when the rhododendrons were blooming.
Which, uh, we were still too early. It's about 2-3 more weeks until that area catches up with Pittsburgh.
Regardless, I was all, "Hey, girls! Hike! Ohiopyle!" and the girls were really very happy about the prospect.
And so we piled into the car and drove to Ohiopyle for a nice long hike.
Mila brought a backpack. In fact, she brought the most obnoxious Minions backpack you ever did see.
Why did she bring a backpack, you may wonder? I probably should have wondered that before we left the house. But, you see, the child ALWAYS takes backpacks and purses with her no matter where we're going. The usual contents are a snack, a few rocks, a handful of trash, an acorn, and a toy or two or five. I don't know why. I don't pretend to care about the why. The kid travels with a whole host of "necessities" and I just roll with it.
But, oh, the child was PREPARED.
I should have known that suspicion was in order given that Mila happily wore that backpack for miles. Usually she ends up having regrets about her "necessities" and tries to get me to carry them, but this time she was happy as can be and totally content to keep carrying her preshusssss things.
And then I learned why.
Tadpoles.
After stopping to admire the hundreds of tadpoles wiggling around in a puddle the last time we were at Ohiopyle, Mila committed herself to making friends with some of those tadpoles. She managed to not only remember that she cared, but also that "Ohiopyle" was the magical place. She packed a perfect tadpole transportation system in that backpack all by herself. It magically appeared just as we happened upon a puddle of tadpoles.
And, so, Mila got to bring some tadpoles home.
And she was SO very excited.
But there's a thing she doesn't know. There's a reason I was so willing to let her catch dozens of baby frogs. The frogs that live in our pond? They've been disappearing. A snake has been caught snacking multiple times and despite being escorted VERY far away, it keeps coming back for more. I believe the two largest frogs are still around (though I haven't seen them in DAYS), but a lot of the smaller ones seem to have vanished for good.
So I suppose we need a new generation anyway. Now that a lot of the plants have filled in, the tadpoles probably stand a better chance in our pond than they did in that puddle. So ... Yay?
The best part, though, is that Mila's advanced preparation skills led her to selecting a container that could be properly sealed during the drive home. You know what's worse than having a snake snacking on your frogs? Having your kid spill a bunch of tadpoles in your car. Fortunately, I don't know that from experience, but I definitely thought about it the entire hour+ we were driving home.
Monday, May 24, 2021