It is not as unusual as you may think for a parent of several children to mix up their names at times, inadvertently calling one by the name of another. However, what can you say about a father of six who has been known to call his kids by the names of their pets and vice versa?
A. It is time to take that man away and put him in a nice, quiet place where he can weave baskets.
B. The man probably has kids who behave like animals.
C. This is a man for whom pets have really become part of the family.
While "all of the above" may well apply, the correct answer, as far as I am concerned, is C.
My wife and I live with out kids in a rather sprawling old house that resembles a zoo in more ways than one. For starters, our kids have their regular pets: a dog, six cats, and a parrot. In the basement crawl space reside opossums and skunks, who come and go through gaps in the stone foundation and whose orphaned and injured members have periodically been taken in for temporary care. (Skunks, by the way, do not regard people as natural enemies and only spray as a last resort when they feel threatened, so we get along just fine with them.)
In the crevices of the stone walls of our house are countless apartments for birds, not al all the exotic kind but normal specimens given to falling out of nest, flying into windows, and otherwise ending up on the disabled list and -so to speak - under out wing for a while. At the margins of our extended family are the yard visitors, such as the squirrels, wood-chucks, and raccoons who come for the food we put out for them (some of the squirrels will eat from out hands) and who find out wraparound porch, with its generous clutter of cardboard boxes, paper bags, and string, a bountiful source of nesting materials.
We did not go looking for our regular pets; they came to us. Our dog and cats are strays of uncertain and - judging from their appearance - unlikely parentage who moved in over the years. Our parrot came to us in the wake of a windstorm that left him perched in a tree in our tree in our front yard. When we saw him and he saw us, he flew right down and made himself at home. After advertising in vain for claimants to ownership, we let him adopt us.
From out youngest child (Kelli, 9) to our oldest (Jason, 17), our kids have found in their pets companions in play, cohorts in work, comforters in rest, confidants in communication, and consolers in sickness.
Companions In Play
Out pets can be as playful as, well, kittens, which most of them once were. As it happens, they like to play with out kids but not with one another, which is just as well if one is a bird. Our dog, Midnight, loves to play catch, especially with Jason, Nikki, and Joel, who throw balls, rubber toys, and Frisbees for her to snare in midair. When she tires of bringing them back, she plays keep-away waiting until the kids are within inches of grasping what she holds in her mouth, then bounding away and running circles around them. She also likes to play
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