A Boy and His Frog

I’m not one to plan too far ahead. There are always fuzzy plans in the future and then about an hour or two before we’re to set out, I’ll start to consider what the plans entail. This happened Saturday when we had to go to a party hosted by one of the partners at my husband’s firm. The party was to begin at 2:00 so at noon I began sending him a flurry of texts about the afternoon ahead. Do we need to bring anything? How long will we be there? How should I dress? What else do we need? This is where I find out it will be a pool party so I hunt and gather the things Liam will need: swimsuit, towel, flip flops, sunscreen. Flowers for the host. After a time, we’re ready to go.

I forget Liam (a 10-year-old) sometimes has an issue with new situations and I didn’t foresee that this would be one of them. Surely anything that involves a pool is outside the realm of social anxiety. I’m not sure where he gets this. OK, he gets it from me. I was an awkwardly shy kid and still get quiet in new situations or with meeting new people.

For a good hour, I sat with him on a couch away from the other party guests coaching him on strategies on how to enter into the fun going on in the pool. I empathized with him about new situations. I reminded him of other occasions where he overcame his fear in similar circumstances. I reminded him how much he loves to play in a pool. I asked him what was the worst thing that could happen. What was the best?

Finally, I outright bribed him. $2 to jump in the pool. He upped it to $5. I said he needed to do a cannonball and stay in 15 minutes. He suggested he could jump in and get right back out for $10. Nope, $10 was too steep a price for something that should be fun, but if he’d stay in for 30 minutes, I’d consider it. We weren’t getting anywhere so I settled on $10 for him to jump in and get right back out. Negotiations had fallen apart because I was dying for some adult interaction. He agreed but still couldn’t bring himself to do it. Defeated, I buried my face in my hands and then heard a splash. He did it!

He realized it wasn’t going to kill him so he got out and jumped in again. And again. And again. I told the host he was going to have trouble getting rid of us at the end of the night and I wasn’t wrong. Before I knew it, Liam was leading the younger kids on an excursion into the woods where they discovered a giant family of frogs. Many, many frogs. Apparently, we have a shortage of frogs around our house and he begged to take one or two home.

I know there are people who are great with stories and explanations about why their kid can’t or shouldn’t do something. I tried to channel this skill. The frog could die if we take him out of his habitat! He could get lost in the car and die there! The frog might not find any friends in his new home and die of loneliness! All roads led to death for the frog so apparently, I wasn’t very good at this. Eventually, I gave up and said if he dropped the $10 surcharge for jumping in the pool and having fun, I would allow the frog to be transported home.

This may have turned out to be the wrong choice, however. When we returned home, I won the battle of leaving the frog outside on Saturday night. Liam gave him intermittent attention throughout the day Sunday but at one point I went to get something from the bedroom and was stopped short by the sight of the frog languishing on my new throw pillow (cue the prickle) while my son looked on as though he couldn’t believe his luck to have found such a good friend. I was left wondering if the frog would suddenly transform into a person right there on my beautifully crocheted and tasseled pillow. Of course, I screamed. The frog, now known as Tony, has been returned to the pond in our garden so he doesn’t die.