Genetics (guest post by The Dad)

The town we were visiting has a huge park, with formal gardens, native forest, walking paths,  lakes, playgrounds,  and a small zoo.  To get Pearl and Fainjin properly worn out so they might sleep well, I took them there for the afternoon.

We started at the zoo, which includes a playground, and spent quite a while there trying all the equipment, looking at the animals, and chasing ducks.  Then we relocated to another playground, which has a very cool curved slide down an embankment, and eventually went for a walk around one of the lakes, ending up at a pavilion with a cafe and kiosk.

Pearl was insisting that she was hungry and thirsty, and thought a milkshake would alleviate both problems, while Fainjin made no demands but instead planted himself on a park bench with the contented expression of one who knows a treat is imminent.  I got him an ice-cream cone, well aware that he had inherited my inability to eat these without profuse dripping, and armed myself with a handful of napkins to deal with the inevitable mess.  Pearl delivered Fainjin’s treat, which he took politely, and sat beside him and inhaled her milkshake.

Fainjin happily sat in the sun for the next half-hour, regularly licking his ice-cream, and between licks looking placidly at the lake and the ducks, unconcerned about the progressively more liquid state of his ice-cream, while I replaced napkins in his lap as needed.  Families came and went, buying their ice-creams, finishing them off without mess, and wandering on.  When Fainjin was nearly down to the level of the cone, I asked, “Are you finished now, Fainjin?”  He replied impassively,  “No. Eating.”

He continued until the ice-cream was too far inside the cone for him to reach, as he doesn’t eat cones, then handed it to me and said “‘inished.”  I grabbed another handful of napkins, cleaned him up as much as was possible without resorting to full immersion in the lake, and we headed back to the car.