got a bird that whistles, got a bird that sings

It's extremely rare that I look on our calendar and see a blindingly empty square staring back at me. My immediate reaction is that I've simply forgotten to write down our plans for the morning but, to my surprise, there simply weren't any. I decided that a relaxing day was in order and naturally that meant Ethan and I would end up at Butterfly World.

This is something we used to do all of the time when he was a tiny infant, the fluttering butterflies hovering over him in the stroller helping lull him to sleep. We'd sit on the glider in the rose garden and listen to the sound of waterfalls off in the neighboring gardens, the sounds of birds chirping in the aviary. What a difference a couple of months makes, as when I sat with him on the glider in the rose garden today, he fought his hardest to get down, sit on his own and rock on his hands while staring excitedly at the lorikeets the next exhibit over.

Back "when he was a baby," he was terrified by the very sound of the lorikeets. Today? Today he laughed so very hard each time they squawked that he had hiccups by the time we left the exhibit. Luckily, the lorikeets are very patient little birds and didn't seem to mind Ethan's incessant reaching for them and trying to smother them in slobbery baby kisses. They're a little bit quicker to react than our cats at home, luckily for them.

Ethan has long since been asleep and the house is quiet, but I still hear his crazy belly-deep laughter in my ears. It was a wonderful morning spent exploring nature, taking in the colors of the magnificent little creatures in this world. It warms my heart, really, the respect that he has for nature and animals already. It is one of my greatest hopes for him that this continues on as he grows and he will forever be able to see the beauty in all living things.