In a weird alternate universe sort of way, we ended up with a Sunday yesterday with no plans, so we trekked off to the
zoo.
Oli has been fascinated with elephants, so we thought he might like it
and I've had a couple of weekend tickets for a few months now. We headed
off to the zoo with some vague directions, since they do not have a
street number for their address (per their website). After a couple
wrong turns, we got there a few minutes after they opened. A word to the
wise, that is THE best time to get to the zoo. Not a lot of people and
the animals aren't tired yet.

Oliver traveled in style. I haven't used the
Ergo in months, thinking he was too heavy for it now. But, when we went to
Happy Hollow out in CA, he was in his stroller, and getting him in and out and running after him got tiring real quick.
So,
I decided to dust off the trusty (not so) rusty baby carrier and use it
on my back. It was AWESOME. I cannot rave about it enough. I carried
him for close to 2 hours, I barely felt his weight on me.
And,
it worked out so much better for him; he could see into the animal
enclosures easily without having to be held up or climbing onto
walls/fences. We put him in the stroller close to lunch time and then
went to see a couple more animals and trust me, it was better in the
Ergo. I had to hold him up or Jeff had to carry him and then he tried to
take nosedives into the elephant habitat. You get the idea!
All
in all, it was the best outing ever. He had so much fun and we only
made it through half of the zoo. so, we'll definitely be going back.
Some highlights from yesterday:
- Polar
bear habitat: they have a water and a dry area for the bears and when
we got in, there was a bear submerged in the water. All we could see was
the hiney and back legs. It scared Oli. We walked to the dry area where
he could see the second bear in its entirety and he was better. Those
cuddly looking things are HUGE.
- He learned how to say cheetah (seetah), rhino (whino), giraffe (giwaff) and saw these animals for the first time.
- He saw his favorite animal for now, the elephant and tried to jump into their enclosure.
- He saw a camel, which he knows from photos at home, but wasn't willing to ride it. Maybe next time.
- We also saw antelopes (which he called deer), penguins, lemurs, arctic fox and he was fascinated with all.
This was him pretty much at every enclosure:


He
also tried a carousel for the third time. He's been afraid of them and
the last time he went on one, he grabbed my neck the entire ride and
wouldn't let go and kept whimpering. Yesterday, he kept pointing at it
and saying "go." So, I took him on it, thinking my neck was going to get
an extension massage again, but no the child went from looking unsure
in the picture on the left to almost giddy in the picture on the right.
At one point, he was shaking the pole saying "go horsey go."
Needless
to say, the whole family had fun and we were pooped by the end of it.
Somebody took a nap in the car and then refused to sleep at home so by
dinnertime, he was looking peeked. And, when I lay him down in bed, he
didn't move a muscle! We have a year long family membership to the zoo and we're definitely planning to go a few times next year.