Floyd and Angela spent Father's Day at the Petting Zoo:

                     

....however, it appears that zoo management was NOT interested in adding a Puckett to their collection, so they had to bring Jackson back home.

You'll note that Jax is staring at the llama in this shot, instead of at Floyd, who (I presume) is operating the camera. He was doing that all day - staring at the animals. It seems that he was completely engrossed in the critters - wouldn't stop staring at them.

He did the same thing with me, the day before; Jax stayed with us on Friday night, as advertised. He wasn't a lot of trouble - as long as Ethel kept his head covered up with a towel, I didn't have to look at him (although, with Jackson's head being as big as it is, we had to use the beach towels). We played peekaboo for hours - he liked having his face behind the blanket, and then he liked to grab it and pull it down, but every time I said "Peekaboo!" it scared him.

But just before he left, I picked up the gitfiddle and started strumming a little - and Church Was Out. His head swiveled and he stared at the guitar, and -as long as noise was emanating from it - he wouldn't look away, at all, at anything. If I stopped playing, he would, eventually, allow his gaze to rest on something else, but as soon as I started playing again - his head would turn and he would lock onto target and stare, as though he thought he could figure out what was making that thing sound the way that it sounded. He was fascinated - transfixed .

If that period of time were any indication, then Jax won't have the standard Pucketty ADD issues that most of us suffer with - if anything, he's got Attention Excess Disorder ("I'm staring at a llama. Don't bother me - I'm staring at this llama. This is a llama, and....I'm staring at it. Llama....the world consists of a llama, and nothing else...in fact, it consists only of this llama - not any other llama...")

Most Puckettlings would say "A Llama - cool!...Okay, what else can I look at?" Jackso would stare at the llama until his gaze was physically forced away from it, and he saw a goat or a deer, whereupon that critter would become the new object of his concentration.

He does seem to be much more calm than most Pucketts - and, without a doubt, he's the quietest ever hatched. Not only that, but he can't stand loud noises - they startle him; most Pucketts MAKE loud noises, and we're never startled by them. I don't know which is louder, a rock concert or a Puckett family reunion, but I do know that the reunion will hit those decibel levels without aid of amplifiers or speakers.

Maybe this is the new breed - Puckettus Novus - maybe he'll be able to take all of the good attributes of my branch of the family, and combine them with a new sort of levelheadedness and steadiness that will result in him perhaps, actually, DOING something.

I can't wait to find out : )