The Little Man Makes Animal Friends

The Little Man has recently become more aware of his universe. He suddenly notices everything around him, from the remote to the hair brush to Mommy's water glass. Everything that comes to his attention he instantly has a burning desire to a) get it in his grubby fingers and b) transfer directly from fingers to mouth. As we recently discovered to our chagrin, this principle applies to animals as well.

Last week he finally noticed our two cats. The three of them had been co-existing the same space but separate spheres for six months. Suddenly, Little Man notices Hey!There are moving things here! And I want them! Lucky for them, his immobility is still keeping them relatively safe. But the lazy, fuzzy one made the mistake of getting too close to roving fingers the other day. Bam! All of a sudden the area where his nads would have been was in the death grip of one who was now furiously trying to plunge said area into his mouth. I managed to rescue the cat, whose eyes were as wide as saucers at this assault, and the boy, who really didn't want the cat - particularly that area of the cat - in his mouth. No matter how much he thought he did.

Then, on our family trip to Emporia, we stayed with an aunt who has a dog. Some kind of little yappy dog who is actually pretty mellow, as far as yappy dogs go. It was love at first sight for both the dog and the Little Man. At first I was worried that the Little Man's iron-fist fur grabbing technique wouldn't sit well with the dog, but she proved to be good natured and actually encouraged his attentions. Mr. Me and I decided that the affair must end, however, when the dog started licking the Little Man on the face, and he licked the dog back. My son shared his first French-kiss (ok, his first several French-kisses) with a dog. So much for sterilizing those pacifiers.