The Zoo

Even though JediBoy is still not feeling himself, and coughs terribly, the doctors assured us that he’s not contagious and so we felt okay about taking the kids to the zoo this afternoon. After being a bit down yesterday because I’ve been letting our illnesses slow us down, I was determined to enjoy life at our own pace today.

We had gorgeous sunshine and a wonderful time at the zoo. It was the first time we’d taken BabyGirl, and she loved all the animals. We spent almost an hour in the lower zoo watching the goats and lemurs. And then the goats again. And some lemurs. And back to the goats. And, hey! There are the lemurs! Watching BabyGirl explore the zoo on foot was priceless. She didn’t want to head up the hill to the upper zoo, and kept running back to the goats. But eventually we convinced her to come along one exhibit at a time - duck pond, tamarins, sloth, coatimundi, binturong - and finally she realized she had a long stretch of sidewalk to run up and down and up and down.

Once we made it all the way up the hill, we looked at the birds and then spent quite a while watching the wolves. This was our first visit to this zoo since JediBoy became a fluent reader, and it was fun having him read all the signs to us.

By this time, BabyGirl was pretty tired and so she rode in the stroller between exhibits. We went on to watch the spectacled bears, tigers, and leopard. JediBoy enjoyed watching the tigers hop in and out of the water and pace right up to the window. I think the leopard was ready for dinner - maybe us?

At the very top of the hill, we enjoyed the aviary briefly and then went on to watch the otter and penguins.

JediBoy and I had a great time watching the penguins and talking to the keeper who was down in the basement room checking on the coral reef tank.

It was such a peaceful day, and it made me grateful all over again that we can be together every day and take this big ol’ world at our own pokey pace.