O, You Scary Cow

Saturday night, Mikey didn't want to go to bed, so we said, "Tomorrow, you want to see animals?"

"Huh?"

"Horses, chickens, cows. What sound do cows make?"

"Mooo," Mikey said. "I see animoos."

"Yes, you go to sleep now, and when you wake up, you see animals."

Cut to 3 am. Mikey climbs up in our bed. "I see animoos. I see animoos now."

We explain that animals are sleeping, and we won't go to see them for 6 hours so he should go to sleep. He can't. Too excited. Keeps listing all the animals he's going to see (including sharks, fishies, and octopus ("ottopoos"). We can't sleep either, perhaps because of the excited toddler bouncing up and down on the bed.

Finally, it's 9 am, and we pack up our picnic lunch (including the requisite bottle of wine for us) and head for the Gentle Barn. It’s a great place (www.gentlebarn.org), a home for farm animals who were neglected and abused. Mikey falls asleep in his car seat. When he wakes up, he sees his first horse.


"Animoos, yay!" he cries. "Yay! Yay, animoos!"

We get out and see the horses and then the cows. Mikey's eyes widen. He hadn't expected them to be so big.

Then the cow looks at him and goes, "MOOO!"

Mikey runs into my arms. As he wakes up more, he gets less frightened, particularly when we go to smaller critters elsewhere in the farm. He even helps me feed the horses some carrots. But still, whenever he sees something he's not sure about, he calls it a "cow" or "scary cow."

"Look at that piggy, Mikey! It's huge!"

"Scary cow," Mikey nods.