Lizard in a pail

I know! I've been slacking. Mostly because we've been tied up trying to purchase a house that we're probably not getting anyway. No big though, there are plenty of others out there. Plus, it's the shopping that's the fun part.

But now I'm back and ready to tell you about the today's playgroup. The older kids are out of school this week and we had playgroup in one of the member's backyard today. It was a beautiful day to be outside and the kids had a blast. In addition to our troop of 5 toddlers we had two older brothers join us, (since they were out of school), both 4ish in age.

The two older boys caught a lizard and brought it over to the sand box where they put it to watch it run around. They then moved it to a sand shovel and started building a house around it. The architechture consisted of putting dead leaves, sticks and grass on top of the lizard in the shovel, forming his "house". The boys were having a great time at it, but the lizard, not so much. He came to an untimely end, smushed by his own new home. The boys then moved the lizard to a sand pail with grass in the bottom so that they could keep him captive, which worked well for them, being that the dead lizard wasn't much for moving. At one point, a small argument developed that the lizard could not be moved to a smaller bucket because he needed the room to exercise. Although they had been told by one of the Mommies, the boys were in denial that their new pet was no longer of this plane.

Our child, during this commotion was playing in the sand box and grabbed one of the sand pails. He was trying to tug the lizard house-sand pail away from the older boys when one of the Mommy's interviened. Peering in at the lizard she explained to the boys that the lizard was dead and that he had to be kept away from the baby, (Connor) because babies aren't allow to play with lizards. This was most appreciated by me, who sat a short distance away pleading with the interviening Mommy to please make sure that my child did not eat the lizard. The two older boys, both struggled and reached to take the pail out of the Mommy's hands, and ended up, milling around at her feet whining to get the lizard back. The entire time she was explaining that they couldn't have it back, Connor was reaching up and taking swipes at the pail just out of reach. The Mommy won,the two older boys, quickly absorbed in playing with cars on the patio while Connor resumed his investigation of the sandbox. While the lizard hung in his tomb from a fence post for burial at a later time.