Raising Roan

It was love at first sight. There was alot of hand holding, and there was tongue action. Roan’s first French kiss took place on the wilderness trail at the Baltimore Zoo. A little girl his age (and with the same sized spirit, albeit much less volume) promptly took his hand upon eying him on the trail, assuredly put it in her own (as though to say, “there you are, I’ve been looking for you my whole life!), and guided their intimate findings down the path, hand in hand, moms in the dust. I could see that Roan loved being loved.

We caught up with them at a life-sized plywood animal figure with the face carved out (where kids can stick their own heads in the opening, pretending to be the animal). They were standing behind the figure. All I could see, below the propped plywood, were two pairs of feet facing each other as though they were making out. They then took turns sticking their heads through the hole – one from behind the figure, and one in front, kissing through the hole – wet, slobbery, open-mouthed kisses. Roan licked her cheek like an ice cream cone and then tried to pick her nose. I wondered where the licking thing came from, until Casey reminded me later how Faline licks Bambi in the Little Golden Book. The scene on the wilderness trail was actually not unlike the Bambi love affair, which begins when they are mere fawns. But alas, the two budding romantics were eventually parted at the petting zoo where Roan took up task in brushing goats.