tiny living things

Ryan has really been enjoying the outdoors and playing with our neighbor. They've ridden bikes and played at each others houses almost every day for the last several days. One day last week we went to the little playground and his friend was stung by an unknown insect. Two days later, Ryan was stung on his lip at the same playground. I went back to investigate and sure enough there were wasp nests inside the top of the slide. Poor guys. This is a picture of Ryan's swollen upper lip from the incident. Luckily he didn't really react poorly and a few Popsicles and a Tylenol later he'd forgotten all about it.

Wednesday we were playing outside and we noticed some tiny little toads jumping around. Ryan's friend is three years older and has gained a little fear with his wisdom. Being nearly three years old, Ryan is pretty much fearless and was attempting to pick up the tiny critter. All of us, including Evan, had a great laugh at the wriggling little guy in his hands. The frog jumped into dangerous territory when he got off into the asphalt. So, I thought I'd help them out and try to coax it back onto the grass. I was unsuccessful in my attempts. After playing with him for a little while, Ryan got excited and wasn't paying attention to where he was stepping. You can imagine what happened next. Yes, he stepped right on the frog and squished him to death just as quickly. Ryan was completely distraught. He did not know what to think, say, or do. He asked why the frog wasn't jumping and we had to explain multiple times to him what happened. Daddy came to the rescue and threw the little guy in the garbage. Ryan was just beside him self with sorrow. He was crying and asking so many questions. None of the answers we gave him helped much. While I prepared dinner in the kitchen, I overheard the most precious conversation. Ryan and Colin were discussing the tiny frog. Colin really took advantage of the teaching moment and told him that the frog got to go to heaven to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus. He told him that we would get to see him again someday too. He also tried to teach Ryan that we need to be very careful and cautious around small things. "We have to be gentle and watch where we step", he told him. I thought it was incredible to listen to them discussing the events. Ryan is still having a hard time understanding what happened. Thank heavens we don't own a dog!