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Sleepy the Kangaroo

A gesture is worth a thousand words.

By Em JadePublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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A gesture is worth a thousand words.

It was 5:30am on a Thursday morning and my 4 year old daughter, Imogen and my 2 year old son, Lincoln, were already bickering with each other about pretty much anything and everything. They’re not always like that, but when they are, THEY ARE.

I knew that in order to have a good day together, I’d have to make the day an “outside day”. So, I asked them if they wanted to go to Paradise Country. We had been there a few times before and it was always a fun time, so they immediately said YES!!

On their website, Paradise Country describes themselves as “An Authentic Aussie Farm Experience” where you can “Discover Australia’s unique wildlife, gorgeous farm animals and amazing Australiana Shows”. They do a pretty good job of living up to that. They have sheep shearing shows, horse presentations, gold mining, tractor rides and a lot of the usual Australian animals you would expect to see such as Wombats, Koala’s, Dingo’s and Tasmanian Devils. They even have farm stay packages where you can stay the night and do farm type things.

We had some breakfast, got dressed and off we went to Paradise Country. When we arrived, we went straight to the Farm Yard Nursery. It is a large, fenced, grassy yard with a vegetable garden, a water play area, sheep, mother goats, baby goats, chickens and alpacas. There is also a few sectioned off pens which have mother and baby cows, piglets, a chick hatching viewing window and finally, a giant family of guinea pigs which are all named after Disney characters. Each Guinea Pig even has framed glamour shot on the wall so you know who is who, it’s very cute. We spent a good hour in there, petting and feeding the animals and when we were done, went to the next exhibit.

The next exhibit we visited was the Koala, Kangaroo and Emu enclosure. In the enclosure, there is a large roped off area that the Kangaroos can jump into if they’re tired and need a rest from human interaction. When they are rested, they come back out for food and pats as they please. There are signs all around the place stating the rules of the rope. This is where we met the Kangaroo in the photo. Following on with the Disney character names, Imogen named him Sleepy. Sleepy, was relaxing on the grass behind the rope. We were on our way to visit the Koalas when Imogen and Lincoln stopped to look at him. They weren’t going to pat him, but wanted to look at him because he was sleeping in such a cute pose. He was sprawled out on his side and had his paw on his nose as if he was trying to block the sunlight from trickling into his eyes or the humans from bothering him. Imogen and Lincoln giggled and it got Sleepy’s attention. Suddenly, he peeped open his little eye and looked at them. Then, he simply put his paw over his ear, pulled it down over his eye and went back to sleep. It was the perfect gesture, as if he was saying “Don’t bother me, I’m sleeping”. We all looked at each other and giggled a little more. Then, we took a quick picture and took his hint and left him alone. Happy sleeping Sleepy!

It’s amazing how even though animals don’t speak the same language as us, they are still able to convey their needs and mood with a single gesture.

Our day that started off on the wrong foot, turned into a wonderful day filled with beautiful memories. Never under-estimate the power of getting outdoors together.

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About the Creator

Em Jade

Look on the bright side ♡

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