last week my oldest son caught a toad and decided to keep it as a pet. "toadie" lives in a reptile cage in j-man's room and seems to be fine after a week of captivity. i'm not so sure how i feel about toadie. he looks pretty bored.

at any rate. funny story. saturday morning i told the boys to let toadie outside for some exercise. after about 5 minutes j-man is screaming and crying hysterically that toadie is "running away, mom! he's running away! you gotta catch him!"

indeed, toadie is hopping like a madman toward the street, the sweet smell of freedom just beyond his reach. i tell j to pick him up and he starts yelling "i don't want to poop, mom!!" this makes no sense to me at the time. all i know is i now have two crying kids, a toad who is quickly turning escape into reality and a black lab who really wants to play fetch with him.

i muster all my courage, slide on my belly underneath some branches and reach for toadie.
i put him back in the box and slam the lid shut. ew. nobody said motherhood was going to involve toads.

we're on our way back into the house when j-man tells me to wash my hands so i won't poop. only then do i realize that i put the fear of God into him a few days ago when i told him toads carry salmonella, a disease that gives you diarrhea. now he won't touch toadie with a ten-foot pole.

so yeah. we've got a bored pet that my kids won't touch. to top it off, the bored pet eats crickets.
all the kids in the neighborhood have been capturing crickets and bringing them over for toadie. every night, the crickets are gone so i was assuming toadie was eating them.

until my head hit the pillow last night and i was immediately assaulted by the sound of crickets. i'm not positive, but they sounded curiously like crickets who had made a prison break. inside my house.

if the count is right, there were 14 of them inside that cage.

maybe it's time to get a gerbil.