Which, surprisingly enough, did not make me baby hungry
One of the coolest things we saw on our honeymoon was at the San Diego Zoo. There was a huge crowd gathered by the giraffe exhibit and wandered over to see what the deal was. Turns out that one of the giraffes had just delivered a calf a few minutes ago, in plain view of the public.
So we all stood there and cooed/gasped/awwwed in unison while the little guy struggled to stand up.
GH: Seriously, though, that thing is HUGE. How did that ever get out of her?
Me: And how did it not split its head open during the drop to the ground?
Eventually he did make his wobbly way up and stood there, swaying and tottering and looking about eight kinds of precious. And I started thinking about how animals like these are born and within an hour they're running around behind Mom. Whereas human babies just lay there like lumps for pretty much YEARS and have to have everything done for them. What is it that giraffe mommies have figured out?
I'm betting giraffe babies used to pull the "oh, I'm helpless, build me a bassinet" routine back in the day.
Mom Giraffe: "Fine. I'm sure the lions will consider the bassinet a tasty bonus when they get here in about 20 minutes."
Baby Giraffe: "Aaaaand I'm up."
This just goes to show what a big motivator lions can be, I suppose. I'll bet if we knew things were out there waiting to pick us off, we'd get twitching.
You can read more about the His Preciousness the Giraffe (and see a pic) here.
I'm Steph, a librarian and mom of 3 (not sure how that happened). Let's chat books, food, Sumptuous Literary Adaptations, poop, knitting and maybe some crazy Mormon Feminism.
5 comments:
I'm appalled that you didn't want a baby giraffe after watching that spectacle.
Except, there probably isn't room in your apartment for one, so I suppose you're off the hook.
I remember learning that when I was at the San Diego Zoo, about 7 years ago, that the baby giraffes literally fall 6 or 7 feet to the ground at birth. Momma Giraffe doesn't squat or lay down or anything. So crazy.
On an unrelated note, it was probably about that same time that Abby and I met each other in a session at the DC temple. The conversation went something like this:
"Are you Abby?"
"Yes."
"I'm Amanda Stretch"
Unison (a la Saturday's Warrior): "I recognize you from your picture!"
Good times. :)
Oh, and Janssen, if you're reading these comments, your husband was my BYU Freshman Academy group leader back in fall 2002.
Small Nemesis-stalking world. One of these days, maybe I'll run into you!
Well, if that didn't make you baby hungry, perhaps these pictures of a dolphin birth will.
(And how freaky is that I read your post on giraffe birthing just after a separate post on dolphin birthing? These things always come in threes, so next up is . . .)
Animal babies never made me baby hungry either. And I have three human offspring, with another on the way. I like to stick to my own species.
that was hysterical, i made spouseman read it.
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