A moment of silence for our friend the turtle

Those of you with children know that silence is truly golden.

The other day after an attempt to wear them out before bedtime provide some exercise by letting them run around in an open field by our house, we discovered a turtle on the side of the road.

We ran over to rescue the small turtle and return him to the nearby pond. After I sat him down, the little guy wouldn't come out of his shell. Probably because Baby Bear kept sticking his face down by the shell and shouting "Come out turtle, come out!" There are mornings when I don't respond well to that call from him either. So I asked the kids to sit down quietly to allow for Mr. Turtle to feel safe and return to the water.

And then it happened.

For an entire 15 minutes, we sat in the grass on the side of the pond in complete silence while we waited for Mr. Turtle to do his thing. It was amazing.

I now have a cooler in my back yard of turtles on standby for emergencies.