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Topic: BEACH (09/01/22)
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TITLE: A Tadpole Named Turnip | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jennifer Champion
09/05/22 -
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I turned to see Salena pointing to the murky water. Her face beaming with pride at what she had found.
“Hurry Mommy!”
I ran across the hard, wet sand to see what all the excitement was about.
“Look, Mommy! What are they?”
I smiled as I peered into the water around her feet.
“Those are tadpoles, sweet girl. Baby frogs.”
She giggled with delight as she loves all animals and especially baby ones.
“Mommy, can we keep one?” Her blues eyes lit up and stared me down.
“Well, we will have to put it in something. I’ll go check the car and see if we have anything. Stay right here.”
I ran up the sandy hill to the car and rummaged around in the trunk. I found a mason jar with a few pieces of candy corn in it left over from the fall festival at church and fussed at myself for letting it in stay in the trunk so long. I emptied them out in the metal trash can the park provides for visitors and ran back to Salena.
Salena watched me wash the jar out in the lake water and said, “Guess what? I named them all. That one is Lulu, that one is Jack, and that one is Turnip. I bet their Momma and Daddy are happy we are going to take them home because I saw a fish and he looked hungry. Do fish eat baby frogs, Mommy? Oh, and that little one there is Squirt. The really big one over there with two legs is George. Remember, that cartoon with Bugs bunny and the big monster that kept calling him George?”
I got tickled at her. She never took a breath. She named off every tadpole we saw. Where she comes up with some of the names, I’ll never know.
“Ok. Well, here is our jar. I even poked a hole in the top so it can have some fresh air. Do you want to catch it?” I handed the jar out to her.
“Yes!”
She grabbed the jar and studied the water looking for just the right one to take home. She bent down and ran the jar under the water. When she brought it up, there were no tadpoles. She didn’t give up though. After ten minutes of trying, she managed to catch one.
“Mommy let’s go home. I wanna show Daddy what I caught. This one is Turnip!”
As we drove home from Lake Lurleen that day, I thought about how wonderful it had all been. Salena was in the back seat asleep and hugging the jar of muddy looking water with a little tadpole in it. I grew up at the Lake and now I get to spend time with my own daughter there. The water is always brown, and the sand is always a little on the stinky side. It made me wonder why we loved it so. I guess it is because of God’s gifts on each trip there like a tadpole named Turnip.
Note from author: This is a true story of the day I took my daughter, only five years old at the time, to our local lake for a day of fun.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
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