so appropriate

Mom sent this cartoon in the mail the other day. The kids have a real fear of being in the water too deep, or in water that is too dark. I don't blame them. It's not that I am afraid of being in the water at this point in time, but I do remember being afraid. Being afraid of the deep end of the pool, of the grate at the bottom which I was certain a shark would come out of if I swam by. And I remember being in the middle of the ocean, looking deep into the sea from the flight deck, 70 ft above the waterline, and wondering what it would be like to scuba dive in the deep blue ocean with nothing below me for miles. I imagined I'd feel pretty afraid. So the cartoon is a good reminder that kids can have active imaginations and real fears and we shouldn't force them to believe otherwise. Heck, adults can have active imaginations. This cartoon is also appropriate because on Sunday we saw a baby lemon shark patrolling right near the beach. We watched it for awhile come right up onto the crashing waves and then head back out to sea. We showed it to C, saying we didn't know what it was (not entirely true, we knew it was a shark, but not its species) and he said he knew - a catfish! He knows for certain it was a catfish. So for now we are not pressing the point of accurate wildlife sighting.