Yizards Aren't So Bad

This morning while I was moving things around, I came across two little lizards. There was one real active little guy, and the other was a big slow guy with orange spots.

I called son number three (in in the absence of sons one and two) to come take a peek. Gingerly he approached them and reluctantly pulled a stone off the little "tunneler" at my request. This was definitely not his thing.

My older two would have already carted the lot of them off to some new bucket home. They love critters!

In fact, on our nature walk Sunday night with the youth group, the kids were asked to pick up eight things from nature which they could press into clay the following week for a craft. They were each given little brown bags into which they could place their items. To the horror and disgust of every girl there (and there were dozens) my oldest arrived back at the pavilion with a bag filled with: one giant field spider, an unknown beetle, a cricket, and a cockroach. To his total delight (and the excited exclamations of his brother and two buddies), the cricket had been dismantled by the spider. Oh, YUCK!!!

But my third son only admires creatures from a distance. He would much rather throw a rock at something then get up close and personal. If it was a spider, I could relate, find him a rock even. But yesterday, I was taking pictures of the pretty tree out the window and looked down to see him about to toss a wood block at our kitty. Not a good thing. He got in big trouble for that, and promised not to do it e'er again. Heh-hem.But, that brings me back to where I started, with the lizards. This child, who has a dozen plastic lizards and dragons in the tub, who usually has a rubber snake tucked in his pocket, and who carries a play turtle around in his book bag, has little appreciation and gentleness for real things in nature.

That's why I called him out. I wanted to give him the chance to meet some harmless real life versions of his little friends and realize that they need special tender care.

After lots of encouragement from me, and protesting on his part, he let me lay them in his little hands. He stood impatiently while we talked about how they felt cool and a little sticky. We talked about how they needed a safe home, which was not in the grass I was about to mow. At that, seeing his chance to get them out of his hands, he dashed to the shed and threw them under. Well, so much for the gentle part.
But on the way back to the house, with the encounter behind him, he says to me, "Yizards aren't so bad, mom."

I guess that's progress.