mother nature's son

One of the comments in Harry's last parent-teacher conference was that he's not big on nature. Since then, I think we've been doing a pretty good job getting him dirty, without him knowing it. However, this morning was a nice opportunity to see something he usually doesn't get to.

When we arrived for dropoff at school, and made it through the gate comparing Evan's Spider-man Crocs to Harry's Spider-Man sneakers, I noticed a baby Robin strain up at me from just inside the fence. I called Harry back to have a look.

"is it dead?"

"no come look closer... see it's looking at you"

...he watches intently as the bird turns its head to quickly glance at Harry, then back at me...

It let out a little chirp and did a quick about-face, and we noticed it's mother just landed a few feet back with a big worm hanging out of its beak.

"see there's it's mommy, and it came to bring it some food, to feed it, just like Mommy does with your sister"

"but she doesn't eat worms..."

"well no... no she doesn't. Pretty neat huh?"

"yeah... where does it live?"

"in a nest up in a tree"

"how did it get down here? did it fall? did the squirrels push it out of the tree? squirrels are mean, they're not nice!"

"um... c'mon, let's go inside"

Wasn't quite sure where to take that one, but I was impressed with the interaction, and that there wasn't any "eeeeeew" or grabbing for said baby bird.

Not a bad start today...