Ilyasak's little friend

Ilyasak has found a new interest for a certain creepy crawly- garden snails to be exact.. Weird isn't it? It's not some fluffy kitten, a furry hamster or a colorful guppy but a GARDEN SNAIL. Yucks! at just the thought of it.
Well its not entirely his own genuine interest I must say. I did introduce him to this slimy creature a few months back when I introduced him to the concept of 'Habitat'. I picked the garden snail in particular and taught him all about it. He became interested as he could see and observe the snails 'live' in action. Garden snails are easy to find- everyone will agree to that. We even borrowed a book about it and 'googled' it on the Internet to find more information about them. It was a learning experience for me as well. The daddy caught a snail once and placed it in his observation jar for half a day so that he could locate where their eyes were and other body parts- it was interesting. The 'snail mania' in him died down soon after we released the snail back to it's habitat.
However, just a few days ago, the 'snail mania' came back to him. This time, he was brave enough to pick them up with his bare hands! I he knew I could not do that for him. If he wants those yucky snails, he had to fo it on his own. He braved himself up and last Saturday, he picked up not one but two on our way to my mom's place. He had then been picking up snails eversince till we had to coax him to return it back- telling him that it was cruel to let them stay in our house as it is not their home.
Just last Sunday, he pleaded with me to go to the field and grass to look for snails. Armed with a plastic container, he picked up two snails and took it back. He was ogling at it and even held on to the container which watching his msgic school bus DVDs. How gross is that? We coaxed him to return in back when we are about to go out.
During his outdoor playtime in the evening, he would call out 'snail where are you? Please cone out'. As soon ashe sees one, he will glady pick it up and place it in his bicycle basket. I had to remind him upteenth time to return them back to where it belong.
I hope he will outgrow his 'snail picking' habit soon.