My youngest child loves animals more than anything on this planet... reptiles, mammals, birds, fish, extinct ones, live ones, books about them, videos about them, zoos, aquariums, action figures/stuffed or plastic animals, and anything else that can be used to pretend to be an animal.... He knows more about most animals than I have ever known in my 40 years... He is 6. He teaches me about the "electro-reception" of a duck-billed platypus - which happens to be one of the two egg laying mammals....
My youngest is amazing with his knowledge. He has been to the zoo. He has been to the museum here. He has been to a museum in Charlotte. He has been to the children's museum at Myrtle Beach. He has been to several aquariums. He has been all over Animal Kingdom and about had a stroke while on the African Safari (he was able to check off EVERY SINGLE animal on the check list for the tour).
All of his friends know that he loves animals. All of his teachers know he loves animals.
People who have never even met him know that he loves animals...
Today, I took him to the zoo. I purposely bought seats on the third row... we could SMELL the animals. I told him that we would be able to meet the clowns and acrobats before the circus...
then we would see animals during the circus...
It was different this year. We were able to meet clowns...
We were able to meet acrobats and children were even able to try their hand (feet?)
at tightrope walking...
But at the last minute, they brought out Asia...
Less than four feet from my youngest child... A enormous elephant walked by, painted a picture, and danced for my kid... okay, probably for hundreds of kids... but I only cared for one.
Later in the show, we were 20-30 feet from 10 tigers, 8 elephants, and more than 30 horses. He enjoyed the acrobats. He laughed and gasped at the stupid men (okay, I thought they were stupid, he thought they were cool) that walked on the rings that spun high in the air. He thought that clowns were funny. He wanted to be the ringmaster. He loved seeing the band and danced as they played. He even complimented the ringmaster on his singing ability...
but the animals.... they took his breath away
today, we both made some memories...
he will always remember being so close to these animals...
I will never forget the look on his face as he was watching them and smiling...
