Of Lizards and Little Girls

She just loves them so much. So, soooo much.

Azalea may be named after a flower, but she is all about things that move. She just can stand herself when she sees a new living creature. She loves all animals, reptiles, insects, birds.... I have no doubt that somehow her life will circle around helping other living creatures as she herself grows. Unfortunately for now, she needs to learn how to contain her love.

The novelty of lizards has not yet worn off for us here. I'm not sure it ever will. We all went for a walk on Friday around what we hope to be our new neighborhood in a few weeks. The kids saw yet another lizard scooting across a rock and they all "ooooohhhhhhh"-ed. So Elmer with his quick hands was able to get the little guy so that we could all get a little closer look. Azalea insisted that she would hold it gently, watch over it, and release it on the appropriate rock down the street. Unfortunately she couldn't stop petting the little guy over and over. Moving his little, and I mean little, he was only about 3" long, body parts around even through our protests. Until she finally "taught him a trick". At first she was so proud of herself. After all she only had him for a few minutes, and already she taught him a good life skill. Poor little guy, and Azalea too for that matter. Azalea thought she had taught him how to play dead. Well, we all know how this ended. There was no playing and she had killed the lizard. From loving him too much. We are learning to love from a distance now. And have taken to carrying around our bug jar, so that when we do find something small and cool we don't have to love it with the squeeze of our fingers.

The snail in this picture was "loved" by Azalea for about 4 days before we instated the "Catch and Release Snail Program". After all he needed to go find his family...

Tomorrow she wants to look for Preying Mantis. No joke.