#jayloverthe3rd

“May I please,” Geoff corrected.

“Daddy, may I please hold-” He paused for breath - “the binoculars?”

“Yes. Thank you for asking politely.” Geoff handed the heavy binoculars to him, keeping two fingers on the edge to help him handle the weight. 

Awsten eagerly squished them against his face. 

After a few moments, Geoff murmured, “What do you see?” 

“I see... I see a fat bird!” He giggled in delight. 

“Where?” 

“There!” Awsten cried, but he didn’t point. His laugh grew in volume, and a female cardinal near the window quickly flew away. 

Geoff didn’t have the heart to shush him.

“That is the fattest bird in the whole world!” Awsten squealed between peals of laughter. 

“What color is it?”

“Brown! And... orange!” 

“Is the orange on its back or its neck?” 

Awsten was too busy giggling to answer. “Daddy! It’s so fat, like a circle! It looks like a ordament on the Christmas tree.” 

“An ‘ordament’?” Geoff repeated fondly. He took the binoculars and gave Awsten a loving squeeze around the middle. 

“Write down, ‘What is that fat bird?’“ Awsten directed, pointing at Geoff’s log. 

An idea popped into Geoff’s head. “Could you sketch it?” he requested. “We could bring it in to show the staff the next time we go to ‘the bird store.’ Perhaps they could assist us in identifying it.” 

Awsten didn’t need to be asked twice. He grabbed the pen and covered the entire page of Geoff’s notes with a circle the size of a CD. Geoff, not bothered, held the binoculars up and scanned the approximate area that Awsten had been surveying, but he still could not find it.

“It’s camouflaged real good in the forest ground,” Awsten noted without looking up from his work. 

“Oh, I see.”

That did get him to look. “You see?!”

“Oh, no, no-” But just then, a very large, very round robin lifted off and fluttered into the nearest tree. “Oh!” Geoff cried, and he laughed as well. “Awsten, you were right; that is easily the largest robin that I have ever seen.”

“Did you find the fat one?!” Awsten asked, whipping around.

“Yes, I certainly did. It flew onto that branch there.” 

Awsten looked for a few seconds. “Yeah, that’s it! That’s it! My fat bird!” 

“It is a robin.” 

“It’s so fat!”