Lucas finds an egg!
The other day, Lucas found an egg from a fallen bird’s nest while walking Dixie the dog. It had a little crack in it, but was otherwise okay. We put the egg out of Dixie’s path, but Lucas was very concerned that I tell his dad about it so that Dad wouldn’t let Dixie get to it on their noon walk.
Later that morning, I found Lucas sitting quietly in our living room, holding the egg .
He had gone outside and rescued it, bringing it inside and placing it carefully into a small nest that I had found a couple of years ago.
He spent the better part of the morning staring at that egg, hoping it would hatch, no doubt.
It was so cute, seeing him sitting there so quietly, just watching that egg to see if it would hatch a baby bird.
But since the egg was cracked, I knew it wouldn’t be hatching.
So in an effort to gently detach Lucas from it, I explained that eggs can’t hatch unless they’re kept very warm by the mommy birds.
Lucas may be autistic, but he’s not stupid! He placed both the egg and its nest into a bowl under one of our living room lamps, which he then turned on. “Keeping warm” was his response when I asked what he was doing.
Okay, how do I tell this kid that we can’t keep an egg inside, because eventually either the cat will get it or it will begin to stink?
I came up with a brilliant idea, and explained to him that I was worried that the mommy bird might be trying to find the egg. He agreed that we should take it outside, and placed it into a windowbox, where the mommy bird could find it but it would be safe from Dixie.
Whoever says these kids aren’t capable of empathy is dead wrong, because you can see the concern in Lucas’ face for that little egg!
Needless to say, for the rest of the day Lucas was outside every few minutes, checking on “his” egg.
Early the next morning, I took care of the egg. Of course, when Lucas awoke, he immediately went outside, where he discovered the egg missing. I asked him what he thought happened, and he said “Mommy came back” in a very satisfied tone of voice.
It’s days like these that I LOVE being Lucas’ mom.
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