A few years ago, Ed's mom gave Connor a coupon to redeem for a transparent tadpole. We were supposed to mail the coupon in and watch the tadpole grow into a frog. We were supposed to view its organs as it grew. Creepy? Yes. But also awesomely cool.
Connor also received "Frog Planet" that same year. I can't remember who gave him this (Linda?), but in any case, we sent away for the tadpoles for that setup first.
Frog Planet was ridiculously disappointing. Our tadpole was weirdly large, and that thing lived for a LONG time - maybe even a year, definitely more than six months. It NEVER turned into a frog. A woman at our local nature center was giving a talk on tadpoles and insinuated the things turn into frogs rather quickly. We asked about ours and her first answer was "are you sure it's not a fish". Well, no, I wasn't sure. Eventually, she decided it was probably a bullfrog, because that was the only thing hearty enough to ship in the winter. By the end of the tadpole's life, it looked like it was trying to grow some legs - but it died before it got to enjoy full frogness. Totally. Disappointing.
That was five years ago.
I never bothered sending away for the transparent tadpole, perhaps because of the great disappointment of the first tadpole experiment. Perhaps because I end up taking care of all the things that live in this house, and I'm not interested in any more care taking responsibility. Perhaps I was just too lazy to mail the card in.
Connor found the transparent tadpole container a few weeks ago and Ed and the kids excitedly sent away for the tadpole. It came! Only the folks sending the tadpole had written the wrong address on the label, and how it eventually came to us is a bit of a mystery. By the time we opened it, things did not look good for the tadpole that would be named "Bob".
"Bob" lasted fewer than five hours outside his shipping container.
Sorry, Bob. Ed has sent away for your next of kin. Hopefully they have a little better go of it than you did. The kids, at least, are very excited to watch that thing turn into a frog. I'm skeptical that will actually happen.
Elaine
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