Okapi

I didn't actually expect this day to come for a LONG, LONG time, but it's come and gone. A three-year-old, my three-year-old, knew something I did not. Ever heard of an okapi? No? Me neither.

We are looking through a book on giraffes. Despite my best efforts to find library books that are fictional, pithy, and full of lively, fun words and pictures, my child is hooked on encyclopaedic works. We picked out ten books at the library last week. Seven are ideal bedtime books, sweet picture books, funny stories, etc. What does she like to read best? Which books does she cart around with her EVERYWHERE? Which books do I fear I will have to replace due to damages incurred by over-loving? The three books on animals. One is on Zebras, one on Elephants, and one on Giraffes.

We arrived home from the library and she was boldly flipping through the animal books making up a story to go with each picture. Thank goodness, since I wasn't interested in reading the four or five paragraphs per page. She was flipping through the giraffe book, creatively called Giraffes, and came to a picture of a weird looking zebra. She annouces to us, "And that's an okapi." We looked at her quizzically and read the teensy print under the picture. Sure enough, it was an okapi. You learn something new everyday, just not usually from a three-year-old!

The okapi is the closest living relative of the giraffe, hence the reason it was in the giraffe book.