An Hour at the Pond

Monday the little girl asked if we could go to the pond.  I wasn't doing anything of importance, and the time spent with her in the previous week hadn't been much.  Her dad was off work due to rain, so my babysitting services weren't needed.  Cliff and I always ask her dad to bring her for a visit on those rainy weeks because we miss her; so we did have her for four hours, on two different days.

The pond isn't a long walk, but she wanted to take a baby doll and a blanket and a carrier and... well, I tried talking her out of that because I knew who would end up carrying all that stuff:  me.  She then suggested I pull her, baby, and all the paraphernalia that goes with motherhood, in the little red wagon.  That makes the short walk a little more difficult for a senior citizen, but I agreed.

So there we were, at the pint-sized pond.

We got as close to the water's edge as my compromised knees allowed, and sat down right at the waters edge.  Cora got handfuls of damp soil, squeezed them into a solid hunk...

and threw them into the water.  We discussed how the smaller hunks of mud said "plink" (spoken in a high-pitched voice) and the larger hunks said "plunk" (in a deep, low voice).

She had to dump a little bit of dirt from both shoes.

We'd been there awhile when a frog began croaking across the small pond, and another to our left answered back.  After their chorus had gone on for awhile, a very small croaking began, almost at our feet!  I shushed the kid and pointed at a spot about four feet in front of us and said, "Listen".  The tiny frog croaked again.  We couldn't see him, but the grasses around him vibrated with each little noise he made.  It got to be too much suspense for a curious little girl, and she reached toward him.  He jumped into the water, a frog less than two inches long, stretched out.  Check out the frogs' croaking on this video.



Finally she was ready to go back to the house.  Her parents' horses decided to check things out as we made our way home.

That's the kid's pony, Dixie, in the background.  The family spent last weekend riding, and this child rode without her mom having a lead rope on Dixie.  For those who might be concerned, she was wearing a riding helmet.  

How can it be possible the infant we began babysitting is almost four years old?