Those are the Facts

Did you know that a lynx can leap up to 30 feet, elephants can swim but hippos can't, bullfrogs can eat birds and mice, cougars and jaguars and leopards are all considered to be panthers when they are black, orcas travel in families led by a matriarch, sea turtles lay over 100 eggs at a time, flamingos are pink because of the food that they eat, elephants only digest half of what they eat and drink 30 gallons of water a day, sea slugs are one of the most uniquely and color varied creatures in the ocean, rhinos have poor vision so if you step to the left when they charge they'll probably miss you, water buffaloes are called cape buffaloes now, the female version of a peacock is a peafowl, a hippo could realistically defeat a great white shark and giraffes do make sounds. All of this comes off the top of my head. Not because I have a good memory, I'm the type that can't remember what I had for dinner last night, but because a certain individual in my home, who in play is always the predator and likes to make me the prey, crams my ears, my brain, my every pore with this kind of minutia daily. There are times where I think my brain matter is going to splatter on the wall if I am asked one more time what the prickly animal is that isn't a porcupine (a hedgehog) or how many Dad's exactly a bullfrog can jump over (3 - the equivalent of 20 feet). But then there are times when we sit down to watch a National Geographic video or turn on some Animal Planet where I can't hear the questions of my boy because my mind is so attuned to the fascinating life of the catfish. I'm not tired of the zoo or the signs that tell you about the animals yet. Someday when I get some extra time I'd like to finish the documentary we started on orcas.
That's one of the beauties of being in a family. You get to learn about things you never would have if a certain little life didn't come and drown you in it. By the time all of my kids are grown and have been through their one-hundred-and-one passions, think what I'll know that I never would have known. It almost makes up for all of the books I'm not reading.