I guess I'm not totally surprised. When Jess and I first started dating, I knew well that she was an animal lover. Not just the "I like the zoo and puppies" kind of animal lover, but a hardcore "I like animals more than people" kind of animal lover. I am a moderate "animals are cool" kind of guy myself, so Jaycee was sort of predisposed to a zoological upbringing. Any of you who know our current animal count, feel free to skip ahead, but for those of you who aren't fully aware, here's the breakdown. Part of being a hardcore animal lover means that you HAVE to stop on the side of the road and keep whatever animal is there (Charlie), you HAVE to take the animals that nobody else wants(Bella/Buster/Rooster), and you HAVE to do it every time. Don't get me wrong, I think Jess' compassion for defenseless animals (i.e. her 6th graders) is admirable. She thinks nothing of changing her life to help a little creature (she even refuses to kill spiders) and has a long list of animals that she has helped in some way or another, but I digress. On to the current list: 1 cat, 3 dogs, and a rooster (yes a rooster). It may seem like a small list, but a small house plus a toddler equals tight quarters. By the way the rooster lives outside. Anyway, in a given day Jaycee can interact with 4 different species of animals and she loves it.
It has been a lot of fun watching Jaycee figure out what each creature is and she really loves her animals. She shows this love by giving them hugs and kisses and being generally excited to be around them. Since I am obviously the odd man out, I started thinking about what is going to happen when Jaycee gets old enough to be an "I like animals more than people" person? I have visions of waking up to jungle noises instead of alarm clocks.
I guess I sound a little selfish right about now, but it is MY blog! After all the dust settled in my whirlwind imagination though, I came to a realization. It isn't the fact that Jaycee is going to bring animals home to add to the collection, but rather that I can't imagine telling her no. To make this kid smile I dance around, I sing, I let her rip out my chest hair by the fistful, and a whole slew of things I wouldn't let anyone else do for a million bucks. I don't really see that changing and I imagine at some point she is going to trade chest hair for hairy creatures, but I'll still be trying to make her smile. You do the math. I guess I should start figuring out where to put the llama...
