Britton

I wanted to record a couple of things about Britton that I want to remember.

#1 The other day Britton and his friends were outside playing with some frogs that they had found. Later on, Britton asked me if frogs cause warts. I said, "No, warts are caused by a virus inside your body." Then Britton started laughing really hard and said, "Mom, viruses are for electronic things." It was pretty funny.

#2 A couple days ago, I took Britton and Haley outside during lunchtime. Britton said he wanted to go see if there were any frogs. There is a small rectanglular fountain closeby our building. It isn't running right now, but it fills up with some rain water and then the boys have been finding tadpoles and frogs in it. So, we headed over towards the fountain. Britton got there first and after looking around, yelled, "There aren't any frogs, but there's a rat." I told him not to touch it and I figured it was dead. But, when I got there, I saw it just swimming around, struggling to keep its head up. Now, I am no animal lover, and, rats are probably pretty far down on the list of animals I could care about. But, even still, it was very sad to see that little critter struggling, knowing it would just end up drowning when it ran out of energy to hold it's head up. It must have accidentally fallen in. I told my kids that I wanted to help it out, but that I didn't want to touch it. We looked around to see if there was a bucket or something, but there wasn't one. So Britton and Haley went and found some sticks. At first try, the rat just swam away from the stick. But, then, Britton gently put it right underneath the rat's stomach and the rat actually wrapped its legs around the stick! Britton lifted the rat out and it just sat there exhausted on the edge of the fountain. It must have been in there swimming for a long time. I thought it would scurry off and soon as it was out, but it just laid there, breathing heavily. We left it there and went to play at the park. On our way back in, we checked for it, and it was gone. I know that most people would want rats dead, and normally I would too, but it just seemed so wrong to see it struggle like that without doing something. Britton was so proud of himself all day long. He kept saying, "I'm really glad I saved that rat, he probably really likes me!"