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Are you reading Llama Llama Red Pajama to your child, too? Of course, Lyons Cub had that book when he was younger, and he still likes it. But it’s nothing compared to meet a real live llama (or, in this case, an alpaca) in a zoo or animal park. When my son first saw it at the Reuschenberg Animal Park in Leverkusen, and grandma and I told him it can spit, he jumped back so abruptly that he ended up on his butt, to the joy of the people standing around him. It didn’t spit, after all. At our second visit to the animal park, he got to see something very special:
A baby alpaca, a so-called cria, was nursing from its mommy. This was a first-ever for my son, who has been interested to hear the story of how he used to nurse from mommy when he was little (I was an exclusive pumper due to needing to fortify my milk for my preemie, but we did comfort nursing). Now, he got to experience it in the animal world.
Such a cuddly, woolly, white, little llama! Alas, there was a big distraction: a chicken had gotten free from its enclosure and was strolling around between the visitors’ feet, so rather than hearing any more information about a nursing llama, my son took off to meet the chicken 😉
If your child doesn’t have the llama llama books yet, check those out. They have great rhymes and are fun to read to the littles and learn by heart for the older kids.