Creature Comfort

Thursday night, when I went to pick Ian up after his Russian Math class, he took the elevator, rather than the stairs, down the three flights to the ground floor.  Of course, Daniel took the stairs, and it all became a great race, where each one insisted that they got to the ground-level before the other (which is hard to adjudicate, since the stairwell landing and the elevator well are at opposite ends of the floor...).

In any case, apparently the reason Ian took the elevator that evening, even though he usually takes the stairs, was because hadn't been able to take the stairs on the way up to class - basically he was compensating for the missed elevator trip on the way to class, and the reason for this was the interesting thing:  Ian didn't take the elevator to class because there had been a moth on the fire door leading to the elevator, and he didn't want to disturb it.  That is, Ian took the stairs rather than the elevator to avoid disturbing a moth.

Later that night, he enlisted my help in gathering up a butterfly that had been perched upstairs.  I cupped it in my hands and took it downstairs, where Ian opened the door for me and I let it out.  As I released the butterfly I told the butterfly that it was free, and Ian composed a little song on the spot about "you're free" and sang it, to the tune of the Hebrew song sung by the Israelites as they pass beyond the Red Sea at the end of The Prince of Egypt.

***

Last night, we had Thai food, and Ian put his Pad Thai aside abruptly and announced a couple of times that he had lost his appetite.  I figured there was more to the story, and that he was probably eager to share the full account, but I didn't ask.  But later that night, when he was hungry again, I asked him why/how he had lost his appetite at supper.  To my astonishment, it turned out that the whole thing had something to do with Daniel.  Daniel had picked out a piece of squid from his seafood noodle soup, and held it up for all of us to admire.  I asked Ian if he simply didn't like the taste of squid, or if he felt sorry for the squid.  The answer turned out to be both.  Moreover, he said something like, "I'm not sure people should be eating squid."

At that point in the discourse, Daniel asked Ian if he wanted squid for a pet.  Ian said he wanted a sugar glider (otherwise known as a sugar bear) for a pet.  I told the boys that in my ideal world, I would have a sugar glider cage at one end of the room, and a squid tank at the other.  They were intrigued by that vision, but of course I was joking.

But it seems that Ian's love f or animals keeps changing the course of events in our lives.  The results get pretty quirky, but it's very moving to see how much he loves all things great and small.

(August, 2012)