Animal Kingdom

One of the things I’ve been looking forward to do as a daddy is to take Finley to the zoo. I love going to the zoo. I even had a membership to the Woodland Park Zoo at one time. It’s just a great way to spend the day.

Right after Finley had her first birthday, we joined some cousins for a trip to the Pt. Defiance Zoo in Tacoma. Unfortunately, she was a bit too small to really get an idea of what was going on. Plus, her attention span was a bit shorter than it is, now.
So, a few months and another set of cousins later, Finley made her first trek to Woodland Park, last week. It was an almost perfect day… Good weather, good company but one thing was missing… DADDY! In a small bit of irony, I was chained to my desk at work, while they all got to go free. But that’s okay. There will be plenty more trips to the zoo.

Meanwhile, Finley and her cousins, Halle and Braeden, hit the zoo with full force. Mommy reported that Finley loved every bit of it… well, the parts she was awake for! It is a pretty exciting day when you go to the zoo. You can’t blame the little one if she runs out of gas and needs to hibernate with the bears.

But, to be honest, every day to her is like a trip to the zoo. She is a big fan of dogs and we can’t go very far without her squealing “doggy!” She knows kitties and duckys and can almost but not quite make the noise of a cow. She has trouble with the OOOO sound. She’s getting better, though. At first she was saying “Meeeeeee.” In fact, she’s becoming a big fan of “Old MacDonald.” She can’t quite keep up, but she loves listening to us make all the animal noises.

One her current favorite books is a book of animals, of course. I do my best to give the most accurate noises as Finley points out an animal. Heather just rolls her eyes, but I’m pretty sure Finley enjoys it.

But animals in a book are one thing. Seeing these creatures live and in person is another. I expect that as she gets older and begins talking, she’ll have several thousand questions about the animals as we walk through the zoo. And that’s good. It’s supposed to be all about learning, anyway. I’m hoping that as we see these animals and talk about them she can begin to realize that we, as humans, are just one piece of this great big puzzle of species.

I’m also pretty sure that, as she grows and becomes more aware of animals, that she’ll be just like her old man and want to keep some as pets. I had my share of hamsters and a rabbit or two. I might have had a fish and I most certainly had dogs. Of course the good and the bad of all of this is how attached we can all become to these pets. Which means that when they go away, there can be some very difficult but important things to discuss.

It’s interesting that for many kids, their first introduction to death is through their pets. As traumatic as it can be, it’s also an opportunity to reinforce concepts of love and family and courage. All of which are there to help us get through tough times like those.

So, can a simple trip to the zoo really spark all these feelings and heavy discussions? The answer is a whole-hearted “yes.” Because in the animal kingdom, life and death are the certain things… It’s how we deal with it that makes us human. It may be a lot to think I can explain all of this to my little girl, some day. But I’ll do my best to let her know that we can help each other cope with the bad and discover the good.