It gives me immense pleasure when I see my kids playing outside, with worms and insects no less. I feel satisfied and pat myself on the back, when they entertain themselves with insects and not with the T.V or the much dreaded cell phone. Ya, they take after me.(Though they still have a long way to go) I had the best childhood, playing with all kinds of insects (one of the perks of being an introvert) and I still find it funny how my mom never stopped me from playing with them.(She probably never knew!)
Let me make this clear. Playing with insects involves, observing them from close quarters, seeing what they do when a leaf is placed in front of them or when food is available readily. It also involves checking out their living quarters, like an anthill and trying to understand how they manage to make those! I hope this doesn’t sound creepy, but it is entertaining in its own right.
I had previously written innumerable posts about this, but they are lost in the sea of internet and my back up issues of blogging. I may write about them in future again, but for now, the topic is the kids playing with worms, an earthworm, to be specific, if you are really into details!
We went on our bi-monthly visit to my parents house and the kids were playing in the verandah, when this little incident had taken place.
My parents have a lengthy verandah which kids their age love. They can race each other, listen to the birds early in the morning, run after the lone butterfly or even spray each other with water from the low level tap. Once or twice, some birds may even come after you, to peck your eyes out (or to kill the lice in your hair), if you make any suspicious movements!
So, one Sunday afternoon, GBee and KBee were running after their grandfather, showing him around his own garden! (Ya, they took him to a plant to show its flowers to him. They took him next to the mighty coconut tree to show him the coconuts, as if its something new. It is his own house for Heaven’s sake!)
GBee suddenly found an earthworm on the cement walkway, slowly going about its business, crawling slower than either a sloth or a snail! He called out to us. KBee too came running at once, not to miss out on the fun, whatever that excited his brother.
Spotting the rogue earthworm!
Suddenly, GBee ran away and KBee tried to touch it (or poke it, probably), but I stopped him midway. GBee returned with a tiny bucket filled with water and splashed it on top of the earthworm!
Watering the earthworm or playing with it?
I thought he was intent on killing off the poor earthworm! But I was mistaken. He was in-fact making a swimming pool for the little creepy crawly! Goes to show how much he loves a swimming pool. (He keeps asking me to buy a house with a swimming pool, as if that comes cheap!)
Once he was done pouring water, I envied it, one lucky worm, got itself a swimming pool, no less! But that might be my opinion. Who knew what the worm wanted? (It probably wanted a less adventurous life with no sudden splashes of water immersing it completely!)
Imagine if we had a downpour of rain, just like a bucket had been emptied suddenly on our heads. That would suffocate us surely. So on second thought, the earthworm must have cursed its own bad luck!
Why me?
So what do you think the worm was thinking?
P.S:
- In the last panel, I zoomed the earthworm, so that I could show the facial expression better!
- My daddy was impressed by GBee’s thought process, about gifting a swimming pool to the earthworm and all! Did such thought ever run in your brain? NO, right! It is so out of the box, rather, out of the bucket!
- Watching insects of various sizes surely changes your perspective of life. We begin to understand life, problems and happiness are all relative. We also understand that philosophy also comes to us in bursts and intervals and thankfully, doesn’t engulf us completely. Even philosophical thoughts are temporary like our sorrows and happiness. Food for thought!
- I thought my readers needed a change of pace with all the posts about Ooty. The next post will continue the progress of our vacation.
Cheerio till the next post friends.
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