muskovy

At Naples Zoo last Thursday (formerly Jungle Larry's, site of many a great childhood memory for me), we took the lad around to see the sights. There were roos, tigers, panthers, monkeys, parrots....the general zoo thing.

Halfway through our tour we stopped to feed some ducks. They were muskovy ducks, the ugly turkey-duck things you always see in Florida. Shawn got a handful of food and started to feed them. They were quite brazen, obviously used to being hand-fed.

Then we gave Andy a few pieces of food. He held his little hand out to the duck.

And of course the duck bit his finger.

Not hard, really. Just a snappy duck bite. I don't think ducks even have teeth.

He started to cry and said, tearfully, "Finger! Duck bit! Duck bit finger!"

In a flash I remembered my mom's story from my own childhood, of a similar incident, and said to my son exactly what she said to me almost 30 years ago.

"Andy! The ducky kissed you! He kissed your finger! What a nice ducky!"

And I'll be damned, it worked.

He stopped crying, smiled, and said, "Ducky kiss! Nice duck!"

And then it was over.