Matthew's Zoo

For Christmas we got Matthew several animals. The Schleich brand is my very favorite because they are the most realistic animals I have found. Matthew got a male and a female Asian elephant, two baby Asian elephants, a tiger, a baby gorilla, baby giraffe, baby zebra and a lion cub. The elephants were by far the most popular. Mommy and Daddy elephants go with him everywhere (he calls the tusked one Daddy and the untusked one Mommy).
Over the holiday, Matthew and I built a zoo for his animals using plain wood blocks. He was very deliberate in his play. The animals went in their pens, and he always closed the block doors after them. (Of course, the animals loved walking on the walls of the pens.) Suddenly, Matthew's tiger attacked the elephants. I was a little surprised because I didn't think that he knew about tigers attacking other animals. (Perhaps he got it from the Swiss Family Robinson--he watched the first 1/2 hour the other day, and a tiger does come close to attacking a baby elephant.) I was a little dismayed to witness the violence of the attack, but was much relieved when the tiger kissed the elephants and made their owies all better.