For the Birds

This morning we had Henry's friend, Parker, over all morning, which was fantastic. Henry does pretty well now playing with his friends, especially one-on-one. (He still gets shy in crowds, but hey, so do I, so this may be a trait that sticks around. Or suddenly disappears at age 40? I'm still hopeful). With Parker he seems especially comfortable, because we've been getting the two together since they were six months old. We spent a good bit of the morning playing outside in the shade of the trees in the front yard. Henry and Parker played around in the sprinkler, inventing a new game called "Bottoms in the Sprinkler" (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like), and in the water table. Charlie tagged along, keeping up as best he could. Everyone ended up soaked, but that goes without saying.

After the water play began to lose it's allure, it occurred to me: "Hey, we haven't shown Parker the baby birds in the nest over in our dogwood tree! He will love that!" Henry raced ahead to show Parker "his" baby birds, and Charlie and I followed close behind. When we got to the tree, I set Charlie on the ground and lifted Parker up to look in the nest at the three adorable fuzzy heads and gaping beaks (the nest is at about my eye level in the tree, which seems a little low to me, but then I'm no bird.) I lifted Parker up, and as we glanced into the nest, several thoughts raced through my mind in rapid succession: "Hmm, the babies must be really nestled down in their nest this morning;" "Oh dear Lord, they're not in there;" "Don't look down!! DO NOT LOOK DOWN!;" and, glancing down, "Abort! Abort!". On the ground, next to Charlie's shoe, a small, still, brown and white mound of feathers. I didn't have time to look for the other two babies; I had to keep the boys from seeing what I had just seen! I lowered Parker hastily to the ground and said in one breath, "Oh well they're not in there today they must have flown away good job little birds!" and abruptly herded the boys away from the tree, back toward the house. Henry and Parker looked puzzled. "But what about the...?" Henry asked. "Look, dandelions!" I said, and we moved on to blow dandelions from their stems. Whew! A close one. I'm not ready yet to try to explain nature's cruelty to Henry. Hell, I'm the woman who feels anxious every morning when approaching the fish tank for the first time of the day!!