Nature Boy

LOOK OUT!! There goes a giant flying bug!! ACK! Quick duck! These words... have never been uttered from my mouth.

I, personally, have never had any issues with bugs. I admit it, I have spiders in my house that I don't crush. Ants that I have tried time and again to gently usher out the door. And moths who I tried desperately to live with harmoniously until they treated themselves to a cashmere buffet and so consequently had to be destroyed. (They crossed a line, damn it. No one messes with Mama's cashmere!)

And I have been trying to instill that same benevolence toward the specius insestuos in Dashell, which was instilled in me by my insect tolerant parents. When you're little you have very few fears. Most fears are basically learned behaviors. And who do we learn most of our behaviors from? The people who we are around the most. The people we look up to. The people we admire... our parents. Hence my desire to be a bug-lovin' role model!

Ever since Dashy has been able to associate insects with a sound, so that he can "talk" about them, he has been fascinated. He points out ants and spiders and, of course, bees... as in "Bzzzzz uh-oh OW!" from our last emergency room visit. (btw... he continued to tell that story for the rest of the weekend! Still amusing after it's hundred and tenth telling? I'll let you be the judge.)

This year we seem to have an unusual number of Praying Mantis' around the house. The other day Dash spied one in the backyard and was mesmerized...

Later we also found the skin of another Praying Mantis. I had no idea that they shed their skin. I thought that it was pretty neat looking and so did Dash...

...until he decided to smush it...

...and then he lost interest. Go figure!

This past weekend, Dave spied a caterpillar while we were all out for Saturday stroll...

Dashy was entranced...

And kept signing "caterpillar" over and over...

Finally, in order to get Dashy to leave the caterpillar alone, we had to tell him that the caterpillar was going to sleep. So for the rest of the weekend, Dashy kept signing over and over that the caterpillar was sleeping! (I guess he thought that we might just suddenly wonder what that wonderful caterpillar was up to. So, nice of him keep us informed. We are getting a little daft in our old age.)

When Dave and I lived in Echo Park we had peacocks. But when we decided to move here (and get all civilized) we were worried that their honking would upset the neighbors, so we gave them to a local arboretum. Little did we realize that our neighborhood has peacocks of it's own and ours would have blended in beautifully without anyone being the wiser.

The other morning we woke up to this...

How's that for a new hood ornament? (or I guess I should say: roof ornament!)

Our hitchhiker had brought some friends and they were quite content to hang out for a while.

And this weekend another family of peacocks came calling...

(Don't be alarmed, this time of year the males aren't sporting their beautiful tails. There's no reason to, since the chicks are all caught up in caring for the little ones right now and won't be looking for a booty call for a few more months.)

Dash decided to let them know that, "We come in peace."

...and then tried to befriend them.

That boy really does like gettin' his nature on!