Skip to main content

Frog went a' courtin' and he did right...by Stevie Wonder

Last night, as I tucked in my oldest and sat with her for a minute, we listened to the frogs. It's spring and rainy so it is time for them to find their happily ever afters.

Every night, a plethora of them call to each other. I always imagine they each have their own song, like Happy Feet.

It used to bother me, the crazy racket. Then we put in a pond and the frog songs amplified from racket to live concert level loud. You'd think we could have foreseen this but no, we did not. We thought only of managing mosquitos and happily watching koi.

So last night, my daughter and I lay in her bed and listened to the frogs.

"What do you think they are saying?" she asked me.

I paused, wading through the truth, which in my head sounded heavily open air market-like but in a vaguely "Good morning Vietnam-ish," with a little "Dear penthouse..." thrown in way.

"They are singing love songs to find their loves," I told her.

"What sort of song? How does it go?" asked my little popular music aficionado.

I told her I thought it might be a little like Stevie Wonder's "Hey Love." This morning, she demanded I queue it up on the iPod. We all listened for a minute, and finally she declared, "Yes, oh yes, I can really see this is like the froggie love song."

And, forevermore, I will imagine little muppet frogs singing and dancing to this song, 60s beach blanket bingo style, little bouffants bouncing, webbed feet and long tongues flashing as they sway.



Comments

Yolanda said…
Froggy Love Song is crying out to be the name of something: an indie band, your future memoir.

Loved this story and the sweet scene you created.
MARY G said…
Made me remember my kids. We have what are called 'spring peepers' around here, shrill and repetitious.
A concession over is a bigger pond with bullfrogs. They go 'baroomph', in distant counterpart to the peepers. My daughters loved this a lot. But never asked what they were singing. Thoughtful child you have there. Love it!
Glenn Verdult said…
Hello i am Glenn Verdult

I enjoy reading your articles

I am looking forward to read more..

Popular posts from this blog

Restaurant Trauma in Texas: How eating out prompted a really uncomfortable lesson about culture

WARNING: This is NOT a family-friendly post, aka the warning I WISH I'd gotten yesterday before I walked in. Yesterday was a Holiday. I hope you heard the scare quotes around that. Yeah, when you are an adult here is how holidays work: you, same workload as always, kids WOO HOO NO SCHOOL FREEDOM. Do the equation. The result is the day I had yesterday. If math isn't your strong suit I'm pretty sure you can still add that up but just in case let's say the highlight of the afternoon included me dumping out the mismatched sock basket and telling the children to have at it, in a way very reminiscent of Miss Hannigan of Annie . Anyway luckily I've taught my kids that Chores are Fun! and they had a good time. Later, I cranked up the fun-o-meter on a bank errand by dropping in the Halloween store to check out costumes, and upped the ante on "Mom needs new running shoes" by tacking on a "Hey let's eat out at a restaurant!" My husband was able to join ...

'Whatever' is not an actual salary and it really doesn't buy the groceries, either

Teaching my girls how to pull the rope for themselves. It was a pretty innocuous mother's club meeting, and we were talking about babysitters. I don't even recall why it came up, the talk about babysitters. Conversation unrolls so organically in these meetings, these times we get together, without children, and get to just talk. But sitters came up in conversation and the turn of that conversation surprised me. Greatly. Apparently around here it's bad manners to quote an hourly rate for one's babysitting services. "You know what gets me?" a mom said, "You know what sitters I prefer? Who I pay the most to? The ones who say 'oh just pay me whatever.'" She went on to explain that (and this is my paraphrase not her exact statement) to her, it came across as very forward, rude even, when these sitters said they charged X dollars per hour. My mind rolled that concept around for a minute: it's cheeky and rude to state upfront how much you charg...

If I Could Talk To Him One More Time, Today (a Monday Mission)

This is part of the Monday Mission. We're to leave a voice mail. Check out Painted Maypole's spot for more... "Hi...umm...Mitch? It's Julie, Julie from high school. I doubt you remember me; we only knew each other for about five minutes. You mowed our lawn a few times, dated my friend's sister, and were in my AP English class senior year. That's why I'm calling---about what you did in the English class. It made a lasting impression, really made a difference in my life. That probably sounds dramatic but it's true. You see, I'd spent a lot of years being the kid who fell through the cracks in school. I think by high school I'd gotten tired of being the good enough and compliant student. Senior year, I was one inch from dropping out, and I probably would have if I'd had the guts or I thought my parents would let me get away with it. Instead, I just created a lot of unnecessary sturm and drang for myself, and cut school so much that by the end ...