A little peice of heaven

The title of this post has special meaning to me and a little girl in my class.  I cannot share her story but I will share her spirit. 

We are in the midst of AIMS prep the Friday before AIMS and guess what decides to arrive.  ALL the animals for our science curriculum that was to have arrived in January. I had a feeling something like this would happen so we prepared their homes a week in advance just in case they arrived at a not so good time.

It was actually fun having them arrive.  The kids were excited and it was a nice change of pace.  The teacher next door doesn't allow her kiddos to name the animals as they are for scientific purposes.  So her students give them names such as No Name, I Don't Know, Hey You.  I love how the kids prevail.  ( by the way she does too.  She really isn't as mean as she wants people to think.)  My kiddos immediately started naming the animals and claiming them.  I didn't even get a word in to warn them about the delicacy of things.  I just let it happen.

Unfortunately the frogs came down with an illness.  Some have ulcers on the outside of their bodies and began to bled.  I'm a sucker for "pets".  I'm trying to hold back my tears as the kids are sharing theirs.  Are they going to die?  One frog "Precious" was  struggling.  She kept trying to float and hold her bleeding sore out of the water.  You could tell she was suffering.  I went and got my next door neighbor and she came to the rescue.  She talked with the class on what we need to do etc.  I needed antibiotics, big gallon buckets, small transfer cups to help them adjust to the new environment and vacuums etc.  We set up the emergency infirmary and try to move on with our experiment with the crabs at the same time.  ( In the midst of all this the principal comes and sits down for a walk thru-  only nice things were said but I hate being observed in a crisis)

My little girl who is my precious is holding back tears.  I go and rub her back and the next thing I know she is clinging to me.  Can't she just die and go to heaven?  I tell her I don't know how to put a frog out of its misery.  They didn't teach me that in college and the 8 hour class I took on this unit didn't tell me either.  One large tear slips down her sweet face.  I go back to my colleague. HELP!  She suggested we put it in a baggie with a little water and put it in the freezer.  The heart rate would slow down and cause it to go into a deep sleep then pass away.  Sounded good to me.  Don't know if there was much truth to it but I went with it.

I told the plan to the little girl and she was happy to do something for this frog.  We wrapped  the baggie in a paper towel and stuck it behind some ice cream in the teacher's lounge.  We would check on Precious in the morning. 

The next day, my lil' girl was ready to go say goodbye to Precious.  We pulled Precious from behind the Moose Tracks and saw our frogsicle.  She looked at peace.  Now we had to decide what to do with her.  She wanted to bury her.  At my old school I would know where I would have buried it.  Here I'm not quite so sure so I said.  We could put her in the garbage.  She agreed but we first had to pray for Precious' soul.  Screw the rules--- I prayed for that frog's soul and held my lil' girls hand.  We did a quick release in the trash can and turned away.    Just as we reached the door she ran back and grabbed the baggie with Precious.  Please Mrs. Winter, we have to bury her. I'll take her. She needs to be buried.  We put Precious back in the freezer so we could think.  Just then a friend walks in and teasingly says, what's a kid doing in here? My lil' girl runs to her and hugs her and tells her the whole story.  My friend is now holding back her tear. 

Because there is no way for my girl to take the frog home, I said I would bury her.  She made me place my hand on her heart and swear to God that I won't throw Precious away.  I did.  She then added that Katelyn and Claire have to be witnesses just to be sure.  The last thing she did on Friday was sneak one last peak at Precious and gave me a hug and told me that I was doing the right thing.

I don't know how much of what all we learned during this Science Unit is Measured on the AIMS test but on the life test it scored excelling.

PS  The frog funeral is at 4 p.m. today.