Blood in my eyes, for you

“What is this stuff?” asks the five-year-old, plunging a stick into the pond.

“What stuff?”

“This stuff. Like bubbly jelly. I’m squashing it.”

I look into the pond.

“Oh no, don’t squash them, they’re alive!”

“What are they?”

“Frogspawn.”

“What?”

“Frogspawn.”

“Huh?”

“Frogspawn.”

“What’s that?”

“Like, frog eggs.”

“I hate frogs”, she says, thrashing them once more with her stick.

I confiscate the stick.

“Why do you want to kill everything? We can watch them grow. It will be interesting.”

“What are they called again?”

“Frogspawn.”

We watch the frogspawn.

“They’re not growing”, she observes.

It is bed time. We are reading Robinson Crusoe. The mother pokes her head around the door.

“Hello, darling! How was your day?”

“Fine”, sighs the five-year-old, “we watched frog porn.”

The Male Nanny