Glump went the little green frog one day

At bath time tonight Tracey was scrubbing red paint on Miss5’s hands.

“We had to paint what animal would be hard to look after at a zoo,” said Miss5 told us, “so I drew a frog.”

Interesting choice.

Nanny doesn’t like frogs either. In fact she’s petrified of them. It’s very funny, especially if I find one while she’s within reach. I wondered if Miss5 was developing a similar phobia. I certainly wouldn’t have drawn a frog – I’d have drawn a fish.

I have a problem with zoos in general – they make me hungry. Ditto farms. Big ditto for aquariums. Aquariums are fish zoos.

“Look at the fillets on THAT!” tends to be my catch cry at these establishments. If I worked at Underwater World there’d be nothing in the tanks but moss and salt water within two years. Once I worked out how to get the fish and crays into the pot without touching them, that is. I don’t like touching critters, and especially fish. They wiggle. Frankly, it freaks me out.

A dead fish is a good fish. If it’s lying under a blanket of butter sauce next to a salad, so much the better.

“Why did you choose a frog? Why would you think a frog would be hard to look after?” I asked Miss5.

“Because they would be too jumpy,” she told me, wriggling her hands. I guess I was wrong about the Nanny connection – it’s a daddy connection. Or was it? Another question occurred to me.

“Frogs are green. Why red paint?”

“For the blood,” she told me. “A dead frog is a good frog.”

Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his Big Family Little Income Facebook Page

 ”Raising a family on little more than laughs.”