now we are four

Here's what my twelve-hours-away-from-being-four year old wanted for his birthday:

• a watch
• a jack in the box, and
• a box of tiger cereal (Frosted Flakes)

When I was at the place that had the jack in the boxes, I noticed they had clear plastic water-filled cubes with two little frogs in each one. The salesman said that along with the snail and the bamboo stalk, the cubes were a self sustaining ecosystem.

"Well by golly," I remembered that he had been crying about wanting a pet recently. And this is so much more boyish than a beta fish (the only "pet" I would have been open to getting him, despite the fact that I seem to have a knack for killing them).

SOLD!