KIDS & CRITTERS

The Woodburn Public Library hosted Steve's Creature Feature, a one hour reptile presentation, two Saturdays ago. Silas was working on a project with Tim, but the other three kids wanted to go. I took them over and watched the first three or four reptiles, but Naomi and Teebs were getting increasingly stressed out. The little Ws love animals and aren't fearful by nature, so their response was unexpected. 

We're about two years past Naomi and I being attacked by a dog while on a run, which was six months after she got bit by a dog in someone's home, and she's doing so much better about her anxiety around dogs. However, having a cobra with it's hood fanned out, a monitor lizard loose a few feet away, and other creatures staring her in the eye at close range while sitting front and center was just too much for her. She moved from in front of me to behind me, from totally separated to right next to me. Teebs was also bothered, moving from in front to on my lap, then putting my arms tightly around him.

I firmly believe that it's important to have your kids learn courage, which our family defines as "doing the thing that scares you", which is why we stuck it out for a while. However, I also believe it's important to factor in a person's personal experiences, like being attacked by animals twice in a short period of time at a young age, and not push their comfort level so much that they're traumatized. The physical tension was increasing and eyes were welling up with tears, so I gave those two the option to quietly exit the presentation. They took me up on my offer and we went downstairs to play games and read books

Devon, however, was happy as a clam and took over 150 pictures. That boy of mine loves animals and is a big fan of random facts and trivia, so he was totally in his element as he watched the animals he was learning about. There's a chance to touch and hold some of the animals at the end of the presentation, so he made sure to get his hands on all the ones he could and asked a lady who was there with her kids to use our camera to get pictures of him with the python. 

Most of his pictures were blurry (bad lighting and animals on the move), but here are a few.