Foiled (and fooled) Again

Rudyard Kipling wrote a tale called the Elephant’s Child, part of the Just So Stories

It’s a wonderful story that tells how the elephant got his trunk

Lucy got it from the library a few weeks ago and we read it every night for 3 weeks – and I loved reading it each and every time

And every time we got to the page where the elephant now had his new trunk, Lucy would point and say

Mama! Now he looks like Babar!

So last week, I forget what night, Lucy and I were sitting at the kitchen table having a snack and going through the mail while we were waiting for dinner to finish cooking

I came across a flier from the Museum of Science and slid it across the table to Lucy telling her she got mail (Lucy loves getting mail)      

Lucy snatched up the flier and studied each and every picture on it…

Mama! It’s Manny!!!

What?

Look Mama! She was pointing at a picture of a woolly mammoth

Who?

Mama! Manny from Ice Age with Scrat!

Oh right, look at that, it’s Manny from Ice Age!

Yeah Mama, he’s a wooly….

A what?

He’s a wooly…. Mama what he again?

A woolly mammoth

Yeah, he a woolly manmooth

Mam-moth I correct 

Manmooth

Mam-moth

Yeah Mama! That what I said, manmooth!

Yep, he is Lucy

She went quiet again and I just figured she was looking at the rest of the card

Mama?

Hmm?

Mama is a manmooth an elephant?

Now, I was not 100% sure how to answer this for a number of reasons; the biggest reason being that some people believe the woolly mammoth and the elephant are related but some say no they are not – remember the DNA testing a few years ago that showed they shared DNA – so does that make him an elephant? And if I say he’s not an elephant, how do I explain he looks like an elephant but is not an elephant….so I take the easy way out

He is honey; a woolly mammoth is a lot like an elephant

Yeah Mama…he big like an elephant, he have ears like an elephant, and he have big tusk teeth like an elephant……and a trunk Mama…..he have a trunk…..

She sort of trailed off and was staring intently at the picture and tracing the body, the ears, the tusks and the trunk on the mammoth with her little finger....then, she set her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand while staring down at the picture

That’s right Luce; he has all those things just like an elephant

Mama?

Yes Lucy?

Did the woolly mammoth come before the elephant?

He sure did Lucy…..he lived a long long time ago…..

Mama?

Yes Lucy?

He lived BEFORE the elephant’s child?

He did

And the woolly manmooth is an elephant?

He is honey

Then how he have a trunk Mama?

Uhh…..

Maria the Mum