Beary Sweet

I need to preface this post by saying I'm not so sure about the whole idea of training wild animals to perform with humans. That being said, we went to Clark's Trading Post on Friday with my parents and had a wonderful time!

The reason I say I'm not sure is that while we were watching the bears perform, I was never really amazed. I mostly just felt strange about the whole thing. On the positive side, black bears in the wild have an average life-span of about 4-6 years in NH. Clark's bears have an average life-span of 27 years. This was told by the son of the original Clark, so we have to consider our source, but the bears do seem well taken care of, and even hibernate during the winter.

There are many other things to do and see at Clark's. Cameron and Damien had a fun time on the water bumper boats. Olivia enjoyed watching, but I'm sure she was wishing she was on the boat with them!

When we first arrived at Clark's, Cameron told us that he wanted a popper "gun". He was talking about the gun that the cork pops out of the end. I wasn't keen on the idea at first, but I have read in one of my natural mothering books that gun play does not need to be forbidden. They advise to just make sure there are well established rules and time restrictions. So, we made sure to tell him it was a "popper" and try not to use the words "gun" or "shoot". We also told him that he cannot point it at people. The reason he really wanted the gun was because he remembered going to Clark's with Damien's parents when he was 18 months old and riding the train. He remembered that other kids had the "popper" and used it to "pop" the Wolfman! I couldn't believe he remembered that. So, we got him a popper and went on the train. Cameron spent the first few minutes hanging out the window ready to pop the Wolfman. When the Wolfman finally appeared, Cameron's jaw dropped. He popped once, but was in such shock at the sight of the Wolfman that he stopped and just stared. The next time Wolfman appeared he was lighting off firecrackers and making loud noises. Cameron dropped his popper in his seat and slid off his chair onto the floor. While he remembered the Wolfman from his previous trip, I don't think he remembered Wolfman being that scary. He spent the rest of the ride in Grampa's lap.

Aside from that, we had a wonderful day!