Bird Watching

As I was in the kitchen doing dishes, Connor yells at me from the living room, "Mom! There's a kiwi bird in our front yard!"  Since I was very impressed that he even knew of this kind of bird, I was reluctant to break the news to him that kiwis are not found in Minnesota.

 I went over to the window to look along with him and he asked me to get my phone to take a picture of it (something he's been asking to do a lot more than usual lately).  Instead, I grabbed the actual camera and got a couple of shots for him.

"Kiwi Bird"

Take off, eh!

I had gone back to doing the dishes and Connor returned to the front window to continue watching the feathered creatures that were feasting on post-rainstorm worm salad.  I had stopped paying attention to the boy at the glass for a few moments and when I looked back in on him, he was kneeling on the couch with a paper pressed to the picture window.

Watching a robin and showing the bird a picture he had drawn.

When Connor was done at the window, I asked to see the picture that he was showing.  He obliged, his description of the drawing filled with deep preschooler regret.

"This is me telling Daddy 'I want a bird' and Daddy saying 'No'".

After reading about his imagined objection, Craig asked Connor what kind of bird he would want.  "A chicken!" Connor replied.  My patient husband explained to my son, who still plugs his nose whenever he uses the restroom, that chickens were pretty smelly.  Connor then went through a list of other possible pets which included a snake, a turtle, and a frog.  "All animals, when kept in cages, will start to smell after a while," Craig explained.  Realizing his own intolerance for odors was going to outweigh his passing desire for a pet, Connor decides, "Maybe I'll just take a picture of a frog."