Everybody Does It

There is something about little boys that I really like. They are very curious. They are very focused. When they are interested in something, they tend to pursue knowledge of that subject with a passion. My grandson, Stirling, is such a little boy. At 4.5 years old he's fully alive at figuring out what makes the world go round. He's got a zillion questions. And I loved answering them.

Too often adults don't listen to the questions small children ask. Or they hear the question and answer the question without probing to find out what originally sparked the question. I love exploring the mind of a child, wandering here and there with it, seeing the world through new eyes once again.

Why give a child a simple answer that is incomplete when you can give them a more complex answer that opens up new vistas for them? Of course, you need to use terms a child can understand, not something out of a college textbook! But I am always amazed at how quickly kids pick stuff up and run with it in their minds.

So, what was Stirling so fascinated with while we were home?
The simple answer - poop.
Who poops?
What does it look like?
Where is it found?
And many more questions dealing with poop. I tried to answer them all. I tried to give him the right amount of information that would cause him to want to learn even more. We had some very 'interesting' discussions. :)

We went to the zoo again. He was very interested this time in zoo animal poop. The hippos were outside when we arrived at their house. The zookeepers were cleaning their indoor pond. Big piles of greenish-brownish stuff littered their outdoor area. "Is that poop, Grandma Cindie?" "Yes, Stirling, that is hippo poop."

I looked at him and his eyes were big and round and he was staring quite intently at it, with an occasional glance at the animal that produced it. He is fascinated with hippos and they terrify him (they not only have huge poop, they make the most horrible loud noises when they 'talk' to each other).

We went inside later when the animals were allowed back in. The hippos walked as quickly as a hippo can walk into their water and within just 3 or 4 minutes, big lumps of greenish-brownish stuff was floating on the water, dissolving and staining the water an ugly color.

"Is that poop, Grandma Cindie?" "Yes, Stirling, that is hippo poop floating on the water. Boy, they go to the bathroom a lot, don't they?" And with big round eyes staring at the water, he nodded his head. Stirling and Kara feeding birds at the zoo.

In many different places and at many different times I was asked, "Do bugs poop?" "Is that goose poop?" (while watching wild Canadian geese and 3 goslings at a local open area.) And while we walked along the mountain side along the Matakat part of the Hayman Fire area, Stirling and I found at least 6 kinds of poop. Elk, deer, rabbit, bird, cow and horse. And he left a little of his own sample, but we dug a hole and buried it so no one else would have to find it. We may have even seen chipmunk poop, but I was very uncertain of that, although I did say "Yes, that might be chipmunk poop." Stilring on the lookout.

In our modern day society we usually don't learn much about animal poop (unless, of course, you have a dog, cat, bird or fish). But in years gone by, it was very important to know what certain animal scat looked like. Hunters could tell what animal had been there, how long ago it had been there, and sometimes even what the animal had been eating (elk eating fresh grass leave a slightly different dropping than those eating dried grasses, etc.), Simply by looking at the animal poop. Even today when you take your animal to the vet (or you go to the doctor yourself!), the vet will ask about their bowel movements - normal, loose, runny, constipated, etc.

And scientists study animal poop all the time. In the Earth Observatory photo I looked at today, this is what I saw: Scientists Locate Penguins by What They Leave Behind (click to make bigger) Can you see it there in the photo from space? I bet Stirling could!

Maybe Stirling will grow up to be a veterinarian, like his great Uncle Wayne. Or maybe he'll grow up to be a scientist of some other sort. Whatever he grows up to be, I hope he never outgrows his curiosity about the simplest things, the most common things - like poop.