Nature — A Few of His Favorite Things — by Guest Mom Burgin Streetman
August lives and breathes three things — books, water and animals, though not in that order. Above all else, animals are his thing. He gives every person he knows an animal alter ego. He is a duck. I am a duck. His father is a rhino. His grandmother is a camel. His girlfriend is a horse. The dude lives, plays and sleeps the animal kingdom.
SLEEPS – His bed is a corral for every stuffed creature from aardvark to okapi to zebra, and at night his noggin rests on a pillow case I made out of Alexander Henry 2D Zoo fabric. He has an inflatable moose head on his bedroom wall, and I love to buy him original animal art like this little ditty from Etsy artist Rebecca Horwood.
PLAYS – Except for a few dog breeds, he has every Schleich animal ever made and loves to make animal lines that snake throughout the house. Fellow San Antonio blogger and ex-New Yorker like myself, Lost in Texas, gifted August a Hansa stuffed tarsier for his birthday, and ever since, I’ve been obsessed with finding a way to afford the entire set (including the three-toed sloth and life-size kiwi.) Plus his grandmother gifted him a set of vintage Pelham puppets, and the donkey and dragon sure do like to dance Sound of Music-style.
LIVES – When the Walton Ford show came to San Antonio, he made take him three times, and was still begging to go back weeks after it was packed up and gone. But even better than seeing animal paintings in a museum, he loves to see them in real life. We’ve promised him a trip to Africa when he turns 11, but for now, August has visited 18 zoos and aquariums across the US (I know, I know… zoos are evil, but how else will he get to see a real, live polar bear). By far his favorite is the Georgia Aquarium — a place so spectacularly designed and gorgeous to look at, it is hard for even an animal rights activist to not audibly gasp when they see a 20-ton whale shark swim by.
posted by Gabrielle of Design Mom at Tuesday, June 24, 2008
12 Comments:
Do you know - I have SO much zoo guilt. I haven't been in years, but now that my oldest turned 3, we've accepted the fact that we kind of have to take him to the zoo. The last time we were there, I felt like screaming as I stood in a crowd all yelling and pointing at the gorilla who just serenely stared back. "Look at the monkey! Look at the monkey!" It makes me feel terrible to be part of that. And I'm not even in the least bit involved in animal rights groups or vegan or anything. It simply makes me feel bad to be there. So I just try to steer my group over to the small mammals that seem to be having fun leaping around their habitats.
I feel exactly the same way, and I do consider myself an animal rights activist. It's a hotbutton issue that my husband and I discuss all the time. I'm not even gonna discuss gorillas here.
When you visit the zoo, if you take the time to stop and talk to your kids about what each animal is and where they are from and what they like to eat, you are gonna raise kids that are respectful and caring toward animals... and I know there are gonna be alot of kids out there taunting tigers and making fun, but for every ten of those kids, there is one like my son.
I understand both sides of the argument here, but at three years old, my son is already jacked about becoming a vet or a wildlife photographer and helping to save the habitat in Africa, and I know that is due in no small part to our local zoo.
Sadly, zoos might be one of the last places in the world where we can view these animals, and trust me, when they so start to disappear from this world, it will have nothing to do with zoos. But if we can keep them from disappearing, it's gonna be the next generation of kids like ours that are gonna save them.
I know lots of folks will disagree with that, but mine is just one small voice.
thanks for sharing!
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oops again, that address above is from a great article in "The Sun" magazine showing the debate against zoos. check it out.
http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/383/thought_to_exist_in_the_wild
I really don't have zoo guilt - I've never taken my 11 or 5 year old and never plan to. If they want to see the animals live and in person - they can go and visit in their natural habitat when they are older. I think the restraint teaches them that there are things more important than indulging oneself - soley for one's own pleasure. that's what zoos really are- entertaiment for humans. I believe that humans definately rule over and trump all animal rights but I also believe that teaching one's children to do what is right, regardless of the desire to seek pleasure and entertainment is most important.
Point taken and heard.
Ha Ha. My daughter has animals for everyone too. She's a duck, I'm a mouse, Daddy's a fox, and baby bro is a panda bear. Aren't kids the best?
We were just at the aquarium in Corpus Christi over Mother's Day weekend. I'm so curious to know if that's the aquarium in this photo. Looks so similar to photos I took there of our 15-month-old daughter (except the diver we saw was a woman).
we love the aquarium in corpus, but that's a shot of august at the georgia aquarium, which really is worth a trip to atlanta. it was spectacular.
My son make similar lines/trains but he uses his vehicles and calls it "traffic".
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