A Baby as Big as a Very Offensive Guard

We thought it about time that the little tad came to terms with the natural world; not the snikes in our yard, nor the cacti, but the real natural world, red in tooth and claw, and stuffed to the gills with straw or styrofoam or whatever big game hunters and stuffers use to display their hormones. There is a concrete-block castle full of such critters on the outskirts of Tucson.

"That big cat up there," Someone said, "was given to us by General George Washington, or Henrik Ibsen, or Somebody, who was just happy to get rid of it." That is not quite what Someone said, but it was what I was thinking.

We did want Jao to get used to the size of some of the beasts he reads about, remembering how surprised he was at his first visit to the zoo, and how, when a chimpanzee howled, Jao headed for the next county. The giraffe was his first test. Even though the giraffe stood very still, it took a braver hunter than Jao to go first, but finally he scooted where he ought not to be taught to go: under a giraffe.

He did not mind the mountain goat, or the hard-headed sheep, or whatever it was, because he had seen a real one a couple of times at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, where things move around all by themselves. The big cats were a bit more of a problem, because they seemed to be frozen in permanent anger. But as every couch potato knows, a couch is not just a cushion; it is a barrier between Let's Pretend and Reality. The metal alligator with the huge mouth and teeth was not to be trusted, ever, and got a wide berth.

Once it was established that all of the beasts were very slow moving, and that some of them had really nice hair, the level of bravery rose noticeably.

We are talking about returning to the real world, probably pretty soon now; maybe the Desert Museum, maybe the Zoo. They have a baby elephant at the Zoo, and it moves around all by itself. Maybe we will try that next. I think the concept of a 350 pound baby might be manageable now.

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