First blog post in months, yes. We are in between houses (long story for another post) and are staying with friends for a few days. What this means is that we have lots of free time! I know there are many, many updates that need to be written, but those will have to wait for another day.
Today we have a story about Chloe and her animal friends. A few weeks ago we took her to the Wild Animal Park. She loved petting the animals in the petting zoo area and her face would light up with joy. She did not love the birds so much, though. And I can’t say I blame her. Those birds freaked me out when I was younger too…they get so aggressive! We bought the cup of nectar and Phil held her while the birds came and landed on his arm to drink out of the cup. She watched them with a look of uncertainty and her eyes got even bigger than usual. Every time they let out a loud chirp she would jump. After a few of these chirps her lower lip started quivering and then came the tears. So sad. But it also made us laugh (does that make us horrible parents?).
Fast forward a few weeks and we took Chloe to the pet store in the mall. She LOVES dogs and always starts laughing when they lick her toes or give her kisses. As soon as we entered the store she started her excited screeching and wanted to bang on all the glass cages (kids like her are probably the reason those animals always look so traumatized). We decided to leave the store because it was just crazy in there and Chloe was getting out of control with her screaming and trying to lunge out of our arms towards the cages. On the way out we showed her a parrot sitting on a branch. Phil held her up to the bird and she kept trying to touch it. She and the parrot were kind of eyeing each other when all of a sudden Chloe let out the loudest screech/caw/scream ever. The parrot quickly scuttled as far away from Chloe as possible, all the way to the other end of the branch. And that is how Chloe faced and overcame her fear of birds. Now she is a lover of all animals (except for small dogs, which I don’t think actually realizes are dogs because they’re too tiny).
Reading about Chloe in the pet store made me smile!
aha, i love that Chloe faced off with that parrot. i remember the lorikeets when we were little…so ill-mannered and nasty! they live wild in Sydney, living in the trees and stuff. their colors were so beautiful compared to the normal seagull/pigeon colors.