Let’s Go To The Zoo!

I am so tired!  I stayed up way too late last night, having coffee with a friend (totally worth it, but I probably should have remembered to get decaf!).  And, today, my mom, Hannah, and I spent the day at the zoo! 

 

Hannah loves animals.  Even though she has only been to the zoo once before (on her 2nd birthday), it is still one of her favorite places!  We didn’t tell her where we were going until we were well on our way…but, I almost think she had it figured out.  (She’s a smart girl!)  Through the entire trip, she kept asking Grandma to tell her all about different kinds of animals (eagles, elephants, cats, lions).  (This is a regular occurrence in our house.  I often hear “Mommy, tell me about…” followed by her most recent discovery, or current obsession – animals, plants, places, foods.)  Once she found out that we were, in fact, going to the zoo, all she could talk about was seeing the elephants!  I think at one point, she actually asked if we could get a real elephant…  Um, no. 

It was warm (downright hot by the time we left!), so a lot of the animals were either sleeping or hiding out in the shade!  But, there were a few that didn’t seem to mind the heat.  The little meerkat just sat there and stared at Hannah!  He was so cute!  She also loved watching the tapirs run around their enclosure, splashing in their pool, and squealing.  (She learned about tapirs in a book about desert animals, and thought it was fun to see them in person!)  We moved on and found the hippopotamus.  He was eating lunch, and as I held her up to get a better view, she commented “Wow! He’s got a really big mouth!”  The guy standing next to us found that amusing, and cracked up at her observation!  We also watched the baby orangutan climb to the very top of the enclosure!  And I’m nervous about letting Hannah climb to the top of the playground equipment!   The giraffes are usually on Hannah’s list of favorite animals, but after watching them for a few seconds, she reminded us that we still had not found the elephant!

So, off we went to find the elephants.  The zoo is in the process of remodeling the elephant exhibit, which basically means that the entire center section of the zoo is a construction zone.  So, we got a little turned around in our attempts to find the elephant exhibit…But, we finally found him!  I was afraid Hannah was going to be a little disappointed, because all we could see was his rear end sticking out of a (large) doorway.  But, she didn’t seem to mind!

On our way out, we tried to see my zoo favorite, the koala bears.  But, at some point, it had been turned into the spider house!  Thankfully, it was closed!!  Instead, we found ourselves at the “Dragons of Komodo”.  Thanks, in part, to a picture in a Sleeping Beauty storybook, Hannah has recently developed an obession with dragons (we won’t let her watch the movie for that very reason!).  So, she got to see a real dragon – up close and personal!  She wasn’t particularly excited about that.  She actually looks slightly concerned in the picture…I’m hoping maybe this will end the fascination.

We had a great day!  We heard lots of cranky, whiney kids while we were there, but Hannah was not one of them!  I know she was hungry (it was well past lunch time when we left), but she never complained!  I love that she makes outings like this so easy!  We were all hot and tired by the time we headed for home, but we had so much fun!