The Story of the Dead Bird

Yesterday Cindy came in from outside very stressed and starting talking very, very fast about Yoshi and a dead bird. Yoshi indeed had killed a small bird and it was presented to us on the carpet that is outside the kitchen door. Cindy was so upset by this. She started crying and wailing (and we almost had the gnashing of teeth). I think she is starting to understand death a little more. She kept asking me when it was going to be alive again, and "how long do we have to wait before it gets up again"? She was even more sad when I said that it would not. She wailed and moaned, "But how will it get to go home and see it's family?" I finally told her that we should bury it. She was adamantly opposed to this idea! "Then we won't be able to see it or know where he is!" she said. I kept telling her that this was the proper thing to do. Finally, she called Dad and told him all about it. Dad told her to bury it. So she got off the phone and told me "We need to bury it!" like it was her idea. :) Why does Dad always get that much clout?? But I digress... So we buried the bird (which Cindy decided to name "Dead-y" (there is a pattern in her names, in case you haven't cracked the code yet). I was busy digging a small hole in the ground near our fence when I heard the camera flash go off. Cindy told me she was taking a picture of him so we would always remember him. (And if she is truly my daughter she was also thinking "we could put this on the blog!") Then as I put the last shovelful of dirt over Deady, Yoshi came frolicking out of the garden and, no lie, was covered in feathers. So add Baby Blue Jay to the long list of prey that have fallen to Yoshi the Conqueror. (The list that includes numerous snakes, a squirrel, dragonflies, mice, and about eleventy twelve hundred lizards). Now, if I could just get Yoshi to stand up to the wussie grey cat the steals her cat food every night, then we would be making some progress...