Wild Animal Kingdom

My children are nurturers.  And I suppose they get it naturally- I mean after all, if I could somehow bring every single orphaned living item into my home I totally would.

They were beyond themselves excited to discover this gorgeous butterfly in our yard and immediately went to work building it a habitat, giving it a name and preparing gormet meals for it.

 And who could blame them?  Although- that red furry part makes me think it might be a vampire in disguise?

 And at the air show office- a momma duck who innocently laid her eggs in a quiet removed area (that quickly became a sea of beeping trucks and screaming men) managed to have all thirteen of her baby ducks hatch just two days before the show.  And I could hardly wait to show the kids- because I knew they would just die inside like I was.  And they did.  And them momma duck took her babies and happily marched them off far away from the air show- and I was standing on a pile of mud screaming to bring my babies baaaack.

 So imagine my surprise when Friday one of the volunteers brought in a baby bird who had been found alone in the grass in the parking lot.  They had watched it all day and no momma was coming back for it and it way dying.  And so I agreed to let it live under my desk and every hour on cue I would stop everything to carefully feed this baby bird a mixture of ground up hot dog and water (what- you are surprised I couldn't kill a worm?)  And that night, when my kids came out to the show, I introduced them to the most beautiful little baby creature and instructed them how to take him home and care for him.

And so they built a bird retreat in the garage and learned the art of feeding a squaking bird every couple of hours.  And they named him Binny.  Binny got to where he was walking around, squaking, eating well, starting to fluff up.  He seemed to be doing okay.

Until all at once he wasn't anymore.  He got weak, quit moving around, and just kind of laid while opening his mouth repeatedly.

Saturday night, Binny died.  And I will forever hate myself for making a huge rookie mom mistake by letting them care for this tiny creature that probably didn't stand a chance in the first place.  Because they were all crying, and I was crying.  And late that night we had a funeral for Binny, said prayers and placed flowers.  And I held all three of my children as they learned  a hard lesson in life.  And I kicked myself for creating their pain in the first place.

And now I am fighting the urge to get them a puppy.  Because the LAST thing we need in this house is anything else alive.