Visiting The Stuffed Animals

The older boys are at camp this week, leaving Micah home alone with Becky and the 'rents. Becky is the only saving grace, because that boy has mastered the art of being mortified of spending time with mom and dad. He sure misses his brothers when they're gone.

In trying to entertain the small child (which I insist on calling him, even though he's anything but), we took him to Cabela's yesterday. This is a 2 hour one-way trip, but in our defense we didn't just go for his sake. Sam had a gift card for there, and needed a new pair of shoes, so it only made sense to use the gift card for shoes and entertain Micah, too.

I told Micah that we were going to see an elephant, because he loves those animals. His eyes lit up and he signed YES, then asked if he'd see a lion, too. I said yes. He used his talked to ask if we'd see a zebra. I said we would. (The boy has more methods of communications than anyone else, and yet chooses to not communicate most of the time.) He asked about an alligator, too. I assured him that there would be an alligator.

Thankfully he stopped there, because I couldn't tell him that there would be a giraffe or a monkey. I was saved. He thought we were going to the zoo, of course. I knew he'd be just as happy seeing the taxidermied animals as he would be seeing the live version, but also thought perhaps I should explain this to him.

But how?

Becky had the answer. "We're not going to the zoo, Micah. We're going to see dead animals."

Yeh, because that's not weird or scarring at all. Sometimes I am rather glad that Micah can't understand intangible concepts like "dead" or "alive."

Because I knew he would, Micah loved the animals at Cabela's. He couldn't wait to go see the alligator, the elephant, the zebras, the lions. He wasn't disturbed in the least that the lions were actually eating a zebra.

He chose, instead, to be disturbed by Big Foot. And not because OHMYGOSH BIG FOOT, but because I asked him to stand beside it for a picture and he was feeling very whatever mom says I'm going to do the total opposite. He rocks that attitude far, FAR too often when he's overtired, and summer is all about being overtired. This is the result, which looks like the OHMYGOSH BIG FOOT thing, but it's not. Trust me. Becky and I were howling at the boy, because if you're going to act like a brat, you deserve to be laughed at. Publicly.

And then, Micah decided to be afraid to walk up the stairs, insisting on taking the elevator because he was afraid of the height. Despite the attitude he was rocking and his overlarge sense of entitlement, this was a legit thing he was suffering from. So not cool, either. His fear of heights is a new thing, and while most of the time it's legit, like not wanting to stand near ledges, being afraid of stairs can prove to be a huge and burdensome hindrance to normal life. Let's hope this is a passing thing and he was having a bad day, shall we?

So that was Day 1 of Entertaining Micah While The Boys Are At Camp. Day 2 consisted of staying home and making him do chores. It was every bit as successful as Day 1 was, and that's both a good and a bad thing.