Definitely random. But true.
Back to the lizard...
I mentioned a few or two days ago that I came home to an ordinary-and-shedding, find-them-all-over-the-place, brown-sometimes-green, I-have-no-idea-what-his-scientific-name-is lizard that Jake and his (for the time-being) SAHD dad had caught in our garage.
When I first met him, he was being held hostage in one of my plastic, food storage bowls with a lightly-colored purple lid that now has at minimum four holes in it. I asked questions about how they caught him (something about screaming, running and jumping) and found out that what had turned into an afternoon observation experiment was named Larry and would have his very own reptile appropriate living quarters in the short amount of time it would take them to make it to the pet store and back.
Over the last few days, Larry has eaten one fly, has spent his days in his lizard-sized home but not out of Jake's sight, and has been used as a means of scaring the holy crap out of me...several times (apparently that's funny to certain people that I live with). And apparently it's been a pretty good thing going for him up until this morning.
Jim called some time before nine, I told him I wished I had stayed in bed (or something like that when he asked how my day was going so far), and then he proceeded to totally cheer me up when he told me what he had really called to say (with Jake's help - Gotta love some speakerphone.). Larry had been set free. And I was happy. Immediately. I told Jake how great I thought it was to know that Larry was reunited with his family (Larry had reeeaaaalllly been missing his family. He told me himself.) and how I just knew his friend was so, so glad to be back where he really belongs.
But it wasn't until tonight after a game of T-Ball had been played and after we had ordered our dinner at McAllister's and after Jake brought up the subject of letting Larry go that I found out that Jake made this decision all on his own. Yeah. He really did. He woke up this morning, noticed his pet had not eaten anything at all since two days before and decided it was best to let him go back into the great outdoors and the world of grass and bushes he was meant to live in. My four-year old, all by his petite four-year old self, put the needs of something that had become his friend before his own wants and desires to keep him as his pet. He did what he knew was best for a little brown lizard aka Larry even though the attachment he had formed was so significant.
It touched me. And it made me thank my God for giving me such an amazing little boy with a heart for lizards...and the reminder, because of him, to be selfless.
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