Unfortunately for Leah, she will probably never own a pet while living under our roof. Don’t get me wrong, I like animals but mostly when they are in their natural habitat. If she begs and begs, in a polite, not whiny sort of way, I will give some thought to what my parents did for us.
After bringing home enough of the “All About Me” sheets my siblings and I filled out at school, my mom felt we were deprived. We had dutifully filled out our name, age and siblings but always had to put zero for the number of pets we had and left the area for the type of pet or name empty.
So my mom got some goldfish from a lady a church and we took care of them till their sad death from a toddler messing around with the fish food and overfeeding them.
For the next week we are looking after our neighbour’s fish. Leah doesn’t seem totally enthralled but does seem to glance at them every now and again.
I find her reactions to new thing so fascinating to watch. There was an eight week old puppy at the park yesterday that I am sure weighed no more than a pound. The pup ran around excitedly and would jump up on Leah with his little legs only reaching the bottom of her dress. Leah was totally enthralled with watching the pup and okay with him jumping up on her as long as she had a hand on me.
Though we will not have any animals (except for the possibility of fish), I am so glad Leah will still have many opportunities to appreciate and learn about all the amazing animals on our earth through our neighbour’s pets, the zoo and books.