The other day I was out with The Boy and we decided to mow the lawn. It's sort of fun too. He pushes along side of me and we have a good time doing it.
We got about half of the yard done and I noticed a large moth just sort of hanging out in the grass right in the path of the mower. I stopped the mower and and he asked why.
"We should help this moth out of the way," I said. I was thinking this is a great way to teach him how to be nice and respect nature and all that other stuff we're supposed to impart as parents.
We raised some butterflies earlier in the year and he got a kick out of that, so he scrunches down next to me and gets a good look at the moth. He didn't want to hurt it, so I picked it up. It was didn't fly away instantly so The Boy got a chance to hold it gently in his palm anyway. He plopped it back into my hand and I tossed it into the air.
It fluttered away aimlessly and then a sparrow came out of nowhere and ate the damn thing. The Boy and I just sort of stared for a second and he said, "I guess we could have left him there."
I laughed out loud and said, "Sometimes life bites you in the butt like that buddy."
Yeah, two lessons in one shot. The first being the traditional, "Be nice and respect nature." The second being, "Even if you escape the whirling blades of death, there can always be something just as bad just waiting for its chance." I didn't articulate that second lesson that grimly for The Boy, but I think the sparrow did an awesome job of doing it for me.
The lawn looks great by the way.
6 comments:
Yeah, but you prolonged the moth's life by a few seconds, which means that in mothyears, he was like McCain.
;)
The story of my life...
Strangely, I had something very similar happen... we used a humane trap to catch a mouse once and as soon as we let it go in the yard, our neighbor's cat pounced on it. Ick. I was sad but my daughter, who was about 5 a the time, just kind of took it in stride.
Great post!
Yeah, but what happened to the sparrow?
Poor little moth. At least he didn't die in vain. He was someone's dinner.
I love how you have a category called "Sucks to be you." Too funny.
I think that is HYSTERICAL! Reminds me of when our gym teacher caught a groundhog in a trap, drove him 5 miles out of town to the glider port and let him go. As he waited to pull out, the groundhog ran across the road, and was RUN OVER BY A MAC TRUCK. Still laugh about that one.
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