My darling little froggingman!

Yesterday we were very blessed my one of Stephen's volunteers at Building Futures to be invited out to their 'little piece of Heaven' as they so lovingly and accurately call it. They have 40acres of woodlands and grasslands about an hour north east of the city. They have developed some of it into a beautiful garden, a quaint little cabin, and a great dug out for their kids, who are now adults, used to spend their summers swimming it. The rest is all natural forest and meadows - it really is a piece of Heaven. Lincoln, of course, had one of the best days of his life as he got to run around exploring, discovering, and just being a little boy! His favorite part of being out there were all the little frogs hopping around, waiting to be caught! Stephen and I caught and few and showed him - and then after that Stephen, Rodger and Linc went hunting frogs for a long time. The funny thing is is that Lincoln doesn't have the words "gentle' or "don't squish" in his vocabulary, so needless to say some of the frogs got a little bit of hard loving from our little 16 month old! Lincoln was able to even catch some by himself - and if they were getting away he wouldn't hesitate to try and step on them!

This one frog Stephen caught for Linc by the water, and placed it on the ground in front of Lincoln - and Lincoln proudly caught it all by himself. As we tried to tell him not to poke, squish, and manhandle this little frog - it got away into the water. But couldn't get very far as it was so exhausted and shocked at being handled so brutually it simply floated on the water. Well Linc was thrilled as he caught it AGAIN! And again this poor frog was 'loved' and discovered by Linc. We finally took it away from him and set it in the water away from Lincoln. And to my horror I watched this little frog sink to the bottom! After a few short minutes it struggled to the surface and slowly made its away as far away from my son as his little body would take him.

It was really cool to start to see the little boy in Lincoln really emerge! One of our 3-5 year goals is to buy some land in the country and settle out there. I won't be surprised if once we are out there my house is filled with creepy crawly things that my little adventure brings home. In fact, I can't wait!