cheetah vs. leopard, and painting

There are many things I am going to learn because I am a parent. Some will be related to parenting. Some will give me insight into myself as a person. Some will force me to grow.

Some will be things I’d never even thought about before. And things that had crossed my mind, but I hadn’t bothered with. Or things I suspected were important, but the need for delving deeper hadn’t come up yet.

The animal kingdom is full of these things. Things I must parse out, now that I am a parent of a child obsessed with  animals.

Crocodile vs. Alligator: Thus far, I have avoided finally figuring out and/or remembering the difference between these two animals. We use the terms interchangeably. Jonah doesn’t seem to mind at this point.

Tortise vs. Turtle: If I have the option, I’ll call it a turtle every time. Again, differences may matter (to someone) later. For now, we’re all quite happy with turtle. (Now that I think of it, I’d go with Rabbit over Hare, but frankly, that hasn’t come up at all. Go ahead, send us an Aesop’s Fables and force my hand.)

Frog vs. Toad: Frog frog frog. Ribbitt.

Camel vs. Dromedary: On one of our zoo trips, Jonah and I were looking at the camels together. At least I think they were camels. The cheeky six-year-old-ish boy beside us was quick to correct me. “Dromedaries,” he said. Ummm. Yeah. Thanks. (Seems we were both right-ish? Thank you, Internet.)

Cheetah vs. Leopard: On Monday, we were having a BBQ-like afternoon, appropriate to the occasion, at our friends’ house. They have two boys, ages 7 and 9 (or so — okay, so I have a brain like a sieve on many topics). Jonah really enjoys playing with them. They bring out toys and books to show him. He’s besotted. One of the books, a gorgeous collection of animal woodcuts called Teeth, Tails, & Tentacles, was a big hit. The boys’ mother let us take it home after. (He loves it, requests it repeatedly every day, by name “Teef, TenT-ah-culls.”) At another point in the day, the three boys and I were hanging out in the playroom. Jonah spotted a small, plastic, velvet coated, spotted jungle cat. He wanted to play with it.”It’s a cheetah. It’s my favorite toy,” remarked Jacob. And then he let Jonah play with it.

From my many forays through T, T & T, I have learned that leopard spots are called “rosettes,” which led me to notice how they are two-colored. While somewhere in the folds of my brain, I noted stored the information that the velveteen cheetah, in fact, had had plain, black spots. (The Internet reassures me that this is, in fact, a valid distinction between the two creatures.)

* * *

On Tuesday, which is normally the day we go to the old-timey songs singalong, Jonah made an alternate suggestion.

“Painting,” he said. And then he said it again, and again. “Painting.”

“You want to do painting?” I asked. And repeated the question, just to make sure.

“Painting.”

We had just been to Habitot on Saturday, the children’s museum in Berkeley that has a big wall that kids can paint on, and Jonah quite enjoys. And I was feeling like I needed to try something new myself, so I took us to the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, which has an art studio with activities purportedly suitable for 18-month-olds. I called ahead to make sure painting was one of them.

Of course, about two blocks from our destination, Jonah said, “Painting. Maybe fishing.”

Habitot has a “pond” where kids can “fish” for paper trout with metal bars hidden them using magnet-ended fishing poles.

Ooops. Oh well. Too late.

Once we arrived at MoChA, he didn’t mind the substitution. We rolled out the play dough, explored the wall of magnets which featured farm animals and plastic letters. Lucky for us, I pulled “grain silo” out of my hat when Jonah pointed to that particular magnet and demanded “Whaz Zat?” We baked an imaginary “Burf-daye Cayke” in the play kitchen.

And then, we painted.

On a bulletin board were several sheets of white paper, pinned up at toddler and child levels. Alongside, a few feet from the wall, stood a lucite bench of sorts with embedded plastic cups filled with water-based, thick, gooey, tempera paints in your basic rainbow colors: green, blue, purple, magenta, red, orange, and yellow, with a big fat paintbrush in each cup.

He started with the yellow, returning to the cup frequently for thick gobs to spread across the paper. After a period of time, he tried a little orange, few strokes of red. He was quite deliberate about it. I suggested the blue, green, purple, but he wouldn’t have any of those. And then he discovered the magenta. “Magenta,” I said. He peered into the cup intently. “Mah-Gien-TAH!” Such a fun word to say. And a fun color to slather all over his modern art masterpiece (a masterpiece that I had quite a time transporting, as thickly freshly painted as it was, from the museum back to the car, what with the wind, toddler, and diaper bag.)

Later, at home, to our mutual delight, we discovered that his egg maraca is also magenta. As are some of the balloons on the counting puzzle that our friends had also bequeathed to us on Memorial Day.

* * *

Tonight, during our exceedingly long and involved bedtime routine, Jonah asked for his “cheetah,” and it was then that it finally occurred to me that I was ready to make the distinction.

This is not a cheetah (with apologies to Magritte).

“This is a leopard,” I told Jonah.”See his brown and orange spots?” I asked, realizing too late that really, if I’m going to get all technical on him, the spots are dark brown and light brown.

He smiled obligingly and examined the small, bean-bag stuffie. “Leyp-urrrd.”

And then, it suddenly occurred to me to ask him, “What’s your favorite color?”

He considered the question.

“Yellow,” he replied with a slow grin.

* * *

My son’s favorite color is yellow. How cool is that?