Outside the Box 
                  - Written and Contributed by Edward C. Woodward      

Now that school is out, I’ve got a helper in my home office. And she needs desk supplies like Daddy. A composition book, crayons and a cardboard table sufficed, until Anna realized she needed a back-pocket-sized notebook like mine. So we took a working field trip to Target: they’ve got a retention pond with wildlife, which qualifies for my column. And watching wildlife would temper my big-box-bends before surfacing in a sea of Target red. Must. Resist. Lowest. Prices. Of. The. Season. Feeling.Weak.

The challenge being outside Target is staying outside Target. An oak tree and several cypress shade grassy spots near a chain link fence enclosing the pond. So it’s easy to find a comfortable seat. For about ten minutes Anna explored her surroundings, discovering a bird’s nest in the crook of the oak tree, watching a marsh hen slip under the fence like a sandlot kid taking a shortcut, and observing ducklings. "It’s like they’re at duck school because their moms aren’t with them," she said.

_______  Must. Resist. Lowest. Prices. Of. The. Season. Feeling.Weak.  _______

But Target’s allure was strong. Her focus slipped. "The grass is too pokey." Silence. "Now can we go into Target?" I needed a quick save. So I played the Ibis card. Anna digs the "shovel bird," as she once dubbed it seeing a flock feed on our neighbor’s lawn. The Ibis are like planes, I said. And check out the cool black markings under their wings! Disclaimer: my daughter is imaginative, but also very literal. My wife once said to her, "Get out of town!" Anna replied: "But I don’t even know how to drive a car." So for a few minutes, Anna humored me and watched the birds. A duck landed. "Look how he made the water go out," she said. She also pointed to an Ibis on the other side of the pond. Then she’d met her wildlife quota. "I want to go look for a journal now."

"In a moment," I said.

"I can’t wait any longer," she whined.

"What’s going to happen?"

"I’m going to start asking more and we can’t stay here all night or all day." Well reasoned.

I made a deal: we’d go into Target, but revisit the pond.

After I vetoed a Hannah Montana notebook, Anna settled for Hello Kitty.

Outside, we followed smaller-than-a-lima-bean frogs or toads that were brownish-gray. They disappeared and reappeared beneath tall blades of St. Augustine grass. Anna noticed litter, too. Then, as if on cue for a public service announcement, declared, "That is really mean to leave garbage and destroy their home."

_______  "Why do they have orange feet and we don’t?" Anna asked.   _______  _______

Were Disney orchestrating the moment, Ibis and ducks like the forest creatures in Snow White would have flanked Anna’s side and chirped a clean up song. But we forgot our prop: I said no thanks to the plastic bag for her notebook. Why didn’t I go inside and ask for a bag? I didn’t think of that option. Maybe I feared facing the big box bends twice in one dive. My senses skewed, it would be altruistic to rescue a portable basketball goal from the anonymity of sporting goods. And I could justify it as an eco-purchase: retrofit the hollow base as a rain barrel supplying drip irrigation to nearby flower beds. Take that, MacGyver.

In real time, we watched the ducks and ducklings for a few minutes before leaving. "Why do they have orange feet and we don’t?" Anna asked. I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter: imaginative science and the acute observation skills of a text-book-free-five-year-old prevailed. "Oh, because we have skin and they have feathers." Not untrue.

And a thought worth wading through the whining to hear.