Yesterday, Dylan had an encounter of the toad kind. He has always been captivated by animals and he gets very excited when he sees animals in our yard. Every time he sees a chipmunk, bird, butterfly, or other critter he runs towards it and says “Ninin hold?” Ninin is the way that he pronounces his name, and he so wants to hold every animal he sees. I have often explained that the animals run away from him because they do not know that he is a nice boy. I don’t have the heart to tell him that the animals are probably almost always going to be too quick for either of us to catch.
However, there are animals that do move at an, er, accessible speed. When he spotted a toad in the grass yesterday, I put a pail in front of it to see if it would hop in. It did, and I picked up the pail for Dylan to hold. He was so excited to be holding an animal, even though it was in a bucket. I explained to him that we could look at the toad for a few minutes and then we would have to let it go so that it could go home. Dylan looked at the toad and giggled as it tried to climb the sides of the bucket.
He was so excited to be holding the toad in the bucket that I thought he would have a hard time letting it go along its merry way after a few minutes. I must say that I was impressed when after about five minutes, he put the pail on its side on the ground and said “toad go home go toad’s own hole”. The toad hopped out of the pail and continued across the yard. Dylan watched it for a few hops and then went to play with a ball. I am glad that Dylan got to get a close look at one of the animals that visits our yard. I’m even happier that he seems to be content with observing them for a few minutes before letting them go.