The Zoo

Today was our zoo trip. We went with the neighbors. J borrowed a conversion van from someone he knows so that we could make the trip in comfort. It worked out wonderfully. I mean, the van was comfortable.

I hate the idea of getting up early to take a vacation. That makes absolutely no sense to me. I get up early every single day. Vacation should mean that I get to sleep late. However, having one toddler who's eyes pop open at 6 am each morning like his eye lids are spring loaded and set on a timer prevents me from sleeping late. If that didn't make sleeping late an impossibility, having a neighbor who says, "I'll be over there at ten to six to pick you up," certainly would. That's what he said. And he meant it. He actually arrived at 12 minutes to six. Trust me, I needed those two minutes.

We loaded into this conversion van and headed north. We stopped in Ohio and had breakfast at Golden Corral. Of course, the boys ate hardly anything then ate Spongebob gummies all the way to Columbus. We got to the zoo and had to walk a mile to get in. I wore flip flops. I need to explain why this was not a good idea. I spend almost every day in high heels. I walk ten to twelve hours per day on the balls of my feet. Walking in flat shoes that offer nothing in the way of support does not make my feet feel good.

All my boy was interested in was seeing the bears. We saw black bears, brown bears, and polar bears. He asked hubby to lift him over the fence into the black bear enclosure so he could fight that bear. He told Poppaw he'd kill it and bring it home. He'd already formulated a plan on getting it home. It involved the van, a crane and a boat. I don't remember the details. I think I'd zoned out about half way through his explanation. Anyway, my baby asked his daddy if he could wrestle a bear. Of course, we're top notch parents so we said we'd have to think about it. (Before we get irate emails from concerned relatives, we never actually considered letting him into the bear enclosure. Neither of us is anywhere near tall enough to reach that high.) He did say that he would have broken through the glass if we'd let him. I don't think I ever gave him an answer to that.

We sat at a picnic table and had lunch, twelve dollar chicken strips and a five dollar Coke. (If you've ever been to the zoo you know I'm not exaggerating. Not much anyway.) We sat beside of a pond where ducks resided and they paid alot of attention to us, espcially Baby BK as nearly every bite of food that touched his lips eventually found it's way onto the ground. Ducks and geese are not as particular as I am about my baby's disgusting habit of chewing food up then spitting it out. Big BK, so far unable to fulfill his one day fantasy of wrestling a bear was trying to pick a fight with a goose. He stood in front of them for a good ten minutes in a strange karate/Backyardigans pose, making predatory eye contact with them the whole time. Baby BK was sitting on a bench at the picnic table, just a cute as cute can be of course, minding his own business, eating a four dollar chicken nugget, when he turned around. A duck was behind him. He hadn't expceted it even though he'd been interacting with them for fifteen minutes. He nearly jumped out of his sandles and shreiked like an siren. It was too funny. I am a top notch mommy though so I contained my laughter and allowed him to sit beside of me.

After we saw the bears and kept my son from taking out all of his hillbilly aggressions on them, we saw the penguins. We labeled them according to Penguins of Madagascar even though I couldn't remember all of their names. Then we saw the tigers, the lions, and the baby elephant. That was pretty much all of the interest my child had in the animals in the zoo. We went into the manatee habitat and saw a baby manatee. Big BK thought it was a whale. He said it was Jonah's whale. We went to check out the elephants and rhinos in their indoor enclosures. There was some kind of giant creepy fake tree in there. He said that was the giant's bean stalk. He wanted to see the giant before we left but we couldn't find him.

All in all it was a good day. We had fun with the boys and our neighbors even though the zoo was crazy packed. Everybody saw all of the animals and no one was held at the zoo for suspicion of being a monkey, which was my greatest fear.

On the way home, I was able to lie down on the back seat of the van and sleep. That was with the baby's car seat on the back seat as well. I get made fun of alot because I'm short. My feet rarely touch the floor when I'm sitting on a chair. I can't use a riding mower because when I stretch to use the brake, I can't hold the seat down. I have to have people get things off of high shelves for me. People think it's funny. I was able to lie down on a seat in a van, flat mind you, with both of my legs on said seat, and sleep from Circleville to Lucasville. I challenge anyone over 5 and 1/2 feet tall to do that, especially with a whiny baby in a car seat on the same bench seat.

It's kind of hard to have a good, restful nap though when you've got an almost four year old on the seat directly in front of you yelling every two minutes, "Mommy, wake up!" He yelled it often and for no other reason than he wanted to. Meanwhile, his super tired baby brother whined like his record was stuck for no other reason than he wanted to and he was sleepy. He eventually fell asleep but not nearly quick enough.

Our day rocked. Hope yours did too.