Toady

Earlier this week, one of Maggie's exercises for auditory therapy was to narrate back a short non-fiction paragraph on the differences between toads and frogs. We have toads. Lots of toads. Baby toads sing sweet music on spring evenings. Grown-up toads gulp down mosquitos. (Gotta love those toads these days!) But Maggie has little experience with frogs. Serendipitously, that evening, shortly after Mags went to bed, a tree frog appeared on the living room window. I got her out of bed to see it, and its little sitcky footpads, and how skinny its body, and how smooth its skin.

My children and I, however, are hiding indoors these days. Even with screens on the windows, even taking shelter indoors as much as possible, our skin is as bumpy as a toad's. I don't hold much hope for these mosquitos to be gone until after some good hard frosts.

I hear tell that the parsonage is being painted on Saturday. The prep work will be done on Wednesday, which involves taking the screens off the windows. We are NOT having screenless windows open this week! We'll all have malaria or West Nile or something! I guess that means I have to resolve my mind to the fact that I'm going to have to endure air-conditioning later this week. (The house will be closed up; time to haul out the allergy meds.)