A Change of Perspective

Do you remember the book "Are You my Mother?" by Philip D Eastman. That's what I thought of when I saw this seagull surrounded by American wigeons in the park, he seemed to asking,  "Are you my Mother?"

I loved that book when I was a kid. I thought it was funny that the baby bird thought the kitten was his mother, and the tractor was his mother and so on.  Of course I knew his mom would find him in the end , because that is just what moms do.

When the girls were 6 and 3 years old, about the age they are in this picture. We went shopping.

 I turned around to hang some clothes back on the rack, turned back and the girls were gone. Not any where in the children' s department, not in the isles surrounding the department. I looked and called and nothing. Finally I heard my oldest daughters voice," Mommy, we are in here". They had hidden in the center of a round clothes rack. They were so proud of the joke they had played on mom. Proud that they had been so quiet. I could see confusion in their eyes when they saw I didn't think this was funny.

So when I think of that book, Are you my Mother, I think about that mother bird, and how she must have felt to come home and find the nest empty. Lucky for her and me it was a happy ending.